Overview
“I told her that when you look at a statue or a photograph, you see only what the person looks like...nobody, I mean nobody, can ever know anybody else completely. Each person is like a book; the cover alone will tell you practically nothing about what’s inside.” — from “MEN AS TREES WALKING”
In this stirring, heartfelt, and deeply authentic novel, the South of the 1920s comes vibrantly to life. A tale of two sisters—one smart, the other “retarded,” as they said back then—a story that goes beyond love and dedication, and challenges our notions, even today, of commitment to family, of segregation of color, of what love truly means. Dulcie Dykes is eighteen years old, a woman, but the entire town of Elliston, Mississippi knows she’s just not right in head. After her mother dies, Dulcie is left in the care of her old sister, Annie Lois. One day after visiting with friends, Dulcie is returning to Elliston via cable car, she meets the charming Tyler Canfield, and they develop a forbidden friendship. Forbidden because Tyler is black, and such relationships are just not appropriate. But circumstances—both tragic and joyful—are working overtime to thrust Dulcie and Tyler together. A town like Elliston won’t be satisfied with such a scandal.