In the Prologue, three children, on a ramble in the woods on March 23 1940, stumble upon a dead body. “Because though they were young, one thing they’d already learned. Colored boy found with a dead white body? That didn’t look good to nobody.”
Diane Chamberlain develops two stories that pose the questions: How do they connect; when do they come together. Anna Dale, a young artist in 1940 and Morgan Christopher, a young artist in 2018 share the same painting. Morgan is in jail in Raleigh, North Carolina for a crime she didn’t commit. Anna, from Plainfield, New Jersey, has just lost her mother and has won a contest to paint a mural for the Edenton Post Office in Edenton, North Carolina. In June of 2018, Morgan is released on bail on with an ankle bracelet on the provision that she finish restoring a mural in two months. A benefactor, unknown to her, has just passed away leaving those provision in his will. She has no idea how he knows her but is glad to be out of jail ~ and she knows nothing about art restoration, merely painting. In December of 1939, Anna Dale receives notice of the contest winnings. She is completely unfamiliar with the culture ‘south of the Mason Dixon line’ and is unprepared for the racism that was prevalent there.
Anna Dale’s mural depicts the character and history of the town of Edendale. The Edenton Tea Party, a local woman's movement, is central to the mural ~, the Mill Village, the Cotton Mill and the fishing boats were all parts of the mural. Decades later, as Morgan works on restoring that same very damaged mural, strange other images came through - a motorcycle, tiny skulls in the Mill Village windows, a hammer with blood drops coming from it. What do they all mean? Had Anna Dale lost her mind? With each chapter, one for Anna and the next for Morgan, the story becomes more convoluted and tangled.
Their benefactor, Jesse James Williams, connects both women. To Anna, he was a young black boy who had great artistic potential. To Morgan, he was only known as an admired and impressive artist but did not know how or why he knew of her. Another conundrum. In 1940, to protect Anna, he took the mural and kept it for decades. Only when he passed, did he bring it out of hiding for Morgan to restore in 2018.
“You have to make peace with the past or you can never move into the future.”
Diane Chamberlain, Big Lies in a Small Town
Title: Big Lies in a Small Town
Author: Diane Chamberlain
Copyright: 2019
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
Type: Novel
Format: Soft Cover
ISBN - 978-1-250-08733-1 (hardcover)
ISBN - 978-1-250-08735-5 (ebook)
ISBN - 978-1-250-27052-8 (international, sold outside the U.S. subject to rights availability)
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