Cinder by Albert French

It's interesting how novelists carry their previous careers into their writing. In Cinder, former photo journalist Albert French tours a 1930s Mississippi town like a photographer looking for subjects. Instead of plot we get scenes, moments, glances. Cinder is the sequel to Billy, French's acclaimed novel about the execution of a ten year old black boy for the murder of a white girl. This time the eponymous heroine is the boy's mother, who wanders ghostlike through the pages like a shell-shocked soldier. Cinder's dialogue is minimal, yet scenes wrap themselves around her as French uses her as an unwitting tour guide to her neighbourhood.
The author's ear is alive to the rhythms of 1930s Southern dialect, but the unfamiliarity of the language does test the reader, as does the lack of narrative thrust. There's no straight arrow story to carry us through the pages; instead we're shown glimpses of a community surviving under unbearable circumstances. Here the execution of a child is not an aberration, but an all too believable occurrence. It shouldn't be forgotten that until 2005 U.S. judges were still sentencing minors as young as fifteen to the death penalty. The past is often closer than we think. [Debbie Martin]