I added a new folder to my Kindle a few months ago. I named it “Started and Hated.” So far I have moved two books in there, too stubborn to delete them, but eager to get them out of my main collection. “Page from a Tennessee Journal” almost ended up in that new folder.
Something pushed me to continue giving the book a chance though. I finally finished it, satisfied at completing the task, but unfulfilled because I never found the hook that made me appreciate all the time I put in reading.
“Journal” follows the messy intersection of a white landowner in rural Tennessee in 1913 and the black tenant farmers on his land. Of course, the white man and the black woman end up having an affair which leads to all kinds of trouble. In the mix are his dutiful wife and his mistresses’ absentee husband.
In the end, I found the book nothing more than an extended writing exercise. I just couldn’t tell what author Francine Thomas Howard wanted to work on in this manuscript. She certainly put in her work at providing dialect in direct quotes. She used all her imagination for the sex scenes. And she went through great pains to develop a narrative structure with individual chapters focusing on one character at a time.
I think that final attribute kept me around to the end. I enjoyed how she gave us a fairly complete look at the story by using four separate third-person points of view. That said, you could see many of the plot developments coming a mile away and had no reaction to the final resolution since it’s what I completely expected.
There is one final good thing to say about the novel. Howard’s book came out of her participation in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. She did not win, but progressed far enough to garner support from the publisher’s AmazonEncore series. I submitted to the contest a year or two ago and didn’t get through the initial round so I have to give her credit. This book might work for some people, but it did nothing for me.