Scottsboro
01 January 2015Synopsis
With an introduction by Jayne Anne Phillips
Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, a novel inspired by the shocking true story of the Scottsboro boys.
Even after all these years, the injustice still stuns. Innocent boys sentenced to die, not for a crime they did not commit, but for a crime that never occurred. Lives splintered as casually as wood being hacked for kindling.
Alabama, 1931. A freight train is stopped in Scottsboro, nine black youths are brutally arrested and, within minutes, the cry of rape goes up from two white girls. In the shocking aftermath, one sticks to her story whilst the other keeps changing her mind, and an impassioned young journalist must try to save nine boys from the electric chair, one girl from a lie and herself from the clutches of the past . . .
Stirring racism, sexism and the politics of a divided America into an explosive brew, Scottsboro gives voice to the victims - black and white - of this infamous case. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2009, Ellen Feldman's classic charts a fight for justice during the burgeoning civil-rights movement.
Details
01 January 2015
9781447275343Reviews
'A fine novel . . . Anyone who wants to appreciate the scale of the miracle that a black man has been elected president of the United States should sit down with ScottsboroLionel Shriver
Taut, haunting . . . a suspenseful page-turnerDaily Telegraph
A keen sense of drama . . . What emerges is a raw sense of alienation and collisionPublishers' Weekly
An astute history . . . clear-sighted . . . There were real innocents: African American young men who lost years of their lives, their health and hope. It is for them, and the bitter lessons they taught everyone who touched the case, that Feldman's book has been written and should be readIndependent
