Being reminded that the lives of black people in most American states were constricted by loathsome “Jim Crow” laws less than six decades ago is to plunge one’s head into a bucket of ice-cold reality. This tale, set in Kentucky, observes life from the perspective of two “colored” teenage girls in the 1950s and ’60s. Audrey is the cerebral one; Caroline the spontaneous one. Both suffer from the stifling dysfunction of their environment. Audrey finds an outlet in being a gifted piano player, while Caroline hankers after life as a Hollywood starlet. In the end Audrey comes closest to some kind of public acclaim while Caroline stays at home to be simultaneously stoical and wayward. Depicting a friendship that is believably inconsistent and with staggering turns of plot, Townsend’s prose style is as delightful as her storytelling is likeably erratic.
