In a Temple of Trees

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 355 pages
• Published by: MacAdam/Cage January 24, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1931561915
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1931561914
• Book Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.9 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 1 pounds

From Booklist
Hudson's first novel often reads like a lurid melodrama; however, its fearless exposure of the virulence of racism and its conflicted protagonist give it a searing complexity. Born of the union between a rich white man and a naive black girl, Cecil Durgin has been "adopted" by Three Breezes, Alabama's only Jewish couple, so that he will always be within the orbit of his powerful father. At the age of 12, Cecil witnesses the vicious murder of a prostitute by one of his father's cronies and is coerced into silence. The brutal sight of the beaten dead lady stays with him as he grows into adulthood, leaving him feeling guilty, prone to visions, and open to the attentions of vulnerable and troubled women. When he seeks to parlay his unique position within the black community into a political force to be reckoned with, the town's white inner circle plots to bring him down. Although at times the novel seems a jumble--part potboiler, part political novel--it's written with raw candor and fierce emotion. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Reader Reviews
Big Jack McCormick owns Camp DoeRun, a cushy hunting lodge built on his own private parcel of West Alabama woods. Flush with game, this singular piece of forest is reserved for McCormick and his fellow huntsmen, a select group of five, in particular. These white men, are all honchos, pillars of their Three Breezes, Alabama community - the sheriff, an attorney, a bank president and McCormick's smarmy right-hand man. They get together regularly, far from their wives and families, their lip service to moral codes and the letter of the law left behind, to catch fish, shoot dove, turkey, and deer, drink, dine well and play with women, brought in especially for their fun and titillation. The aberrant is encouraged. Sometimes, there is just one women for all five, usually a beauty. Then the men would play "The Game." On a brisk November night in 1958, twelve year-old Cecil Durgin, a "colored orphan," was working up at DoeRun. He had been trained to accompany the hunters, flush the game, skin and field dress deer, cook, clean, fetch and carry. On this one fall evening, which is to mark Cecil's life forever, he witnesses the perverse Game as it is played-out, and the vicious murder at the evening's finale. At his young age, the boy knows, as did most African Americans, that "life could be taken on any whim or mangled on a dare, that his own silence meant life." This lesson is brought home brutally the following morning when Big Jack has a talk with Cecil. Thirty-two years later, The Reverend Cecil Durgin is, himself, a pillar of the Three Breezes community. He is the owner of radio station WDAB, and has his own show preaching "common-sense scripture," playing Gospel music, imparting local news, and offering spiritual advice. He has become a spokesperson for the black community, and politically, he can deliver the vote. Thus he bargains with those he detests to do what is best for the town's people. He still harbors dark secrets, however, and the resulting neuroses, brought on by his painful childhood, threaten his relatively solid marriage to a woman who loves him and shares his burden. Cecil occasionally drives through McCormick's woods to visit a place haunted by memories of a women long dead, and to think about the guilt he feels for endangering his marriage. An important election is coming up, one which could significantly impact the ever accumulating wealth of the four remaining DoeRun lodge men. They see Cecil as a major threat to their plans, and although times have changed significantly since that November evening in 1958, they still have the Klan around to do their bidding. The fast paced, taut narrative moves toward a chilling conclusion, gathering momentum and building tension as it goes. Cecil is not the only one scarred by secrets, which are all about to come to light. Suzanne Hudson paints a dark and disturbing portrait of the south as it was, with its brutal enforcement of strict class and color lines. She vividly depicts the omnipotence of a powerful few who were able to destroy, with impunity, the lives of the innocent, with a single gesture or word. Here men gave more respect and importance to the game they hunted and prized, than to the blacks they lynched. She evokes feelings of gut-wrenching fear and humiliation, as the reader empathizes with the victims of savage inhumanity. Ms. Hudson is a powerful, talented author. I intend to spread the word. This novel is a definite keeper. JANA