Red Clay: Black and White in Alabama

 

 

 

 

Red Clay (2025)

By Charles Francher

Blackstone, 338 pages.

★★★★

 

Red Clay is a multigenerational tale of slavery and its aftermath. Red Clay, Alabama, is the primary setting, but it also travels to New Orleans, the Côte d’Azur, and Paris. It opens in 1943 with the funeral of Felix H. Parker. Adelaide Parker shows up to pay her respects and offer an apology to Felix’s kin. What makes it more poignant is that Felix is Black and Adelaide is White. Her kin used to own those of Felix.

 

Move the clock back to 1864, when Felix and Adelaide were children. Road’s End Plantation had many enslaved servants, but the Parkers prided themselves on being benevolent owners. Author Charles Francher strips the sheen off such nonsense. Red Clay is a novel, but it is one in accordance with contemporary scholarship. Some enslavers were less brutal than others, but the very logic of slavery was that the relationship of enslavers to the enslaved was one of absolute power versus absolute subjugation. Francher shows this in numerous ways in a tale based loosely on his own grandfather. As was often the case, slaves often bore the surname of their enslavers. Felix’s parents, Plessant and Elmira, hold enviable positions on the plantation. Plessant is the valet of John Robert Parker, but he’s also akin to a manager of the estate. His word often leads to the dismissal of abusive White field drivers and Elmira is the cook whose offerings are the envy of Alabama.

 

The flip side is that Adelaide handfeeds Felix scraps from the table as if he were  prized dog. Felix hates that, but is advised by Plessant to keep his mouth shut and be thankful for the extra rations. If you know your history, the year 1864 is a significant turning point, as it is clear the Confederacy is losing the war. John Robert promised Plessant a modest parcel of bottomland and freedom. John, though, knows that Road’s End is sinking in debt, news he keeps from his pampered wife and daughter. He entrusts Felix with a secret that he cannot reveal, a horrible burden for an eight-year-old when John suddenly dies. Road’s End passes to his son Claude, who has little of the sentimentality,  work ethos, or temperate habits of his father. He sends some of enslaved to a slave trader, including Felix’s older brother and sister, who were sold “like a litter of hound dog pups” to a planter in Mississippi. He also sells the tract of land promised to Plessant, who has no legal claim to the land or his freedom, as nothing was written down. When Felix complains, Claude sends him and his best friend to the fields, where other slaves bully them. Felix, though, is clever and gets revenge on a tormentor that gains respect from other slaves. When he is whipped for another transgression, though, Elmira and Plessant respond by withholding their expertise in ways in accordance to what the Industrial Workers of the World later called a “systematic withdrawal of efficiency.”

 

The next year the war ends, the Black Parkers are freed, and they decline to work on the plantation. As it transpires, Felix has a gift as a carpenter and soon attracts commissions from customers Black and White. Claude simply can’t adjust to the new order of things and lacks Felix’s patience. Slowly Felix builds up a nest egg and acquires what was promised to his family. He has a novel way of helping other freedmen, staying ahead of Claude’s animosity, and his hooded compatriots. He even acquires a wife named Zilpha whose family was from cut from different cloth than his own. But can he avoid hubris?

 

When we return to 1943, you need to remember that slavery was within the living memory of elderly people who were children when it ended. This was the case of Adelaide. This part of the novel is both awkward and moving. How does one apologize for your family having enslaved someone else’s?

 

This is Francher’s debut novel, which is impressive given the mature nature of his storytelling and style. My only complaint is that it has revenge scenarios that stretch credulity. Like the superb movie Rosewood (1997), Red Clay sometimes feels like an alt.history that’s the way we might wish it had played out. But I could be wrong; even John C. Calhoun called a “peculiar instituition.”

 

Rob Weir