In this novel, when five-year-old Danny Jackson speaks to his grandmother about the ni**er grave, she tells him not to use that word. Years later, Danny and the great-grandfather of the murdered Black man try to uncover what really happened with the help of Danny’s grandmother. The author, Stanford Johnson, was inspired to write this novel by the fact that his own great-great grandfather objected to a murdered Black man having his body thrown in the road fill of the Rich Mountain Road under construction in Blount County, Tennessee, and allowed him to be buried on his farm during the 1920s.
Townsend, Tennessee: self-published, 2021. 300 pages. Trade paperback.