American Ghost (39 page)

9. While there are several stories unraveling throughout the course of the book, they all somehow tie back into the lynching of Henry Kite. Talk about how each of the main characters is affected by Kite. How did reading Uncle Ott's experience of the lynching affect your view of Kite or of what happened to him and his family?

10. Why do you think Carl waited so long to tell Sam who shot him? Why do you think Carl told Sam and not Jolie?

11. Discuss the resolution of the mysteries surrounding Sam's shooting and the missing fingers. Were the answers they got enough for both Sam and the Fraziers? Where do you think the fingers were and what might have caused someone to turn them in, seemingly out of nowhere?

12. Who or what do you think the title
American Ghost
refers to? Do you think the ghost is one person? Discuss the impression it gives of the story and what you think it might mean.

ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB

1. 
American Ghost
is a fictional representation of current efforts to uncover the truth behind the famous Claude Neal lynching that took place in Marianna, Florida, in 1934. Learn more by visiting
www.exploresouthernhistory.com/claudeneal.html
or reading
The Beast in
Florida: A History of Anti-Black Violence
by Marvin Dunn (see
www.upf.com/book.asp?id=DUNNX002
). Or read Ben Montgomery's investigative piece in the
Tampa Bay Times
:
www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article1197360.ece
.

2. Does your hometown have any dark history? Or perhaps it has a proud past? Do a little research online and bring any findings to share at your book club meeting.

3. Janis Owens is not only a great storyteller, but she can cook, too! Check out her cookbook-cum-memoir,
The Cracker Kitchen,
or make the dishes from the book on the following pages for your next book club meeting.

 

Enhance Your Book Club Discussion by Preparing These Dishes Excerpted from Janis Owens's
The Cracker Kitchen

L
et me begin with a big country welcome to my kitchen. Just come on in and don't bother with the dog—he don't bite. Kick off your shoes and make yourself at home. Pour yourself some tea (there in the refrigerator; it should be cold) and brace yourself for a good feed, as Crackers aren't shy about eating but go for it full throttle, in it for the sheer, crunchy glory.

Though our roots are in the colonial South, we are essentially just another American fusion culture, and our table and our stories are constantly expanding, nearly as fast as our waistlines. We aren't ashamed of either, and we're always delighted with the prospect of company: someone to feed and make laugh, to listen to our hundred-thousand stories of food and family and our long American past.

For Crackers are as indigenous to the New World as long-leafed tobacco, though we've never really been the toast of the town. We're the Other South: eighth-generation children of immigrants who came to America on big wooden ships long before the Civil War and steadily moved inland, the pioneers of three centuries. We mostly settled along the southern half of the eastern seaboard, long before the War of Secession, but we never darkened the doors of Tara or Twelve Oaks unless we were there to shoe mules or to work as overseers. We lived and thrived outside plantation society, in small towns and turpentine camps and malarial swamps. We're the Rednecks, the Peckerwoods, the Tarheels, and the Coon-ass, and a hundred other variations besides. We are the working-class back that colonial America was built upon, the children of its earliest pioneers, who have lately tired of hiding our light under a bushel, and have said to hell with all the subterfuge.

Let me take a moment to validate my own Cracker pedigree and credentials, as I am what Princess Diana was to the English: a modern female scion of an ancient line born in rural Florida when Destin was a shallow, nameless bay and Orlando the shy younger sister of central Florida's true metropolis, Lakeland. I grew up in rural Florida, which was still segregated back then, and from outward appearances we looked as assimilated as our white neighbors, except for the fact that we ate squirrel and talked like raccoons and carried pocket knives. We were something of a puzzle to everyone, even ourselves, as there were no accurate archetypes in contemporary American culture that reflected our particular past. Our great-great-grandfathers had fought and died for the Cause, and though we wept buckets at the railroad depot scene in
Gone With the Wind,
we had few emotional and historic ties to the ever-popular, ever-mythic plantation South.

We self-referred as Rednecks, Hillbillies, and Country Boys, shying away from the time-honored description: Crackers, as it was a name that had, in the latter half of the century, taken on a sinister connotation. Though the word had been in circulation for time out of mind, it had come to describe a portion of the population that was the nemesis of the social-gospel, julep-sipping South. Crackers were the Bad Guys in the Civil Rights Movement: crew-cut, toothless miscreants who wore George Wallace tie clips and used the N-word in combination with every adjective on earth. They were ill read, over-churched, whiskey-addicted; prone to incest and hookworm.

We were some of that, and some not. (My Cracker grandfather's best friend was a black sharecropper, and a fellow black sawyer at the heading mill had once saved his life by lifting a truck off his chest.) Black people were intertwined in our history in a way that is hard to explain, and old-school Crackers would willingly own up to mixed blood in a humorous manner (“a black cat in our alley”). But for the most part, having so much as a drop of black blood was taboo. Being white was our ace in the hole, you might say, and the single characteristic that set us apart from our fellow poor folk, though middle- and upper-class whites treated us with (if possible) more contempt than they did people of color.

Our role as cultural outsider was so ingrained that we didn't overly labor to explain our histories to our fellow townies. We lived lives centered around our churches, marrying within them and giving much credence to the Lord's command to “come out from among them.” We came out, and we stayed out. It wasn't till the late 1970s, when Disney moved to Florida and every Yankee on earth built a condo on the coast, that the lily-skinned Florida-born natives began to self-refer as Crackers as a way of separating their old Florida culture from the flood of Yankee transplants. In this translation, being a Cracker meant your family had lived in Florida for at least three generations, had Southern roots, and among themselves, still talked like raccoons. It became a source of pride, and eventually the word gained national recognition as a way to describe white rural Southerners. And that's what we are proud to be.

 

Iced Tea

The serene nectar of the gods. What more can I say about this all-powerful liquid? It has caffeine. It has sugar. It has good antioxidants and will make your soul sing. It is the single item in the Cracker repertoire I couldn't live without, though old-timers were equally fond of ice water. In their day, it was a delicacy, and old Cracker daddies had an annoying habit of making their wives and children fetch it for them whenever they wanted it. I have never been a great fetcher for anyone, and tea is my own obsession. I am giving you the straight scoop on how I make it, though mileage varies, as do recipes. Some people put in lemon or mint, but I leave mine cold and strong and a little less sweet than the liquid sugar you get in restaurants. It's simple to make. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to blind you with science.

2 quarts water, divided

4 family-sized tea bags

1 cup or so sugar

1. Fill a large kettle or medium saucepan with 1 quart fresh water. Heat over high heat for about 4 minutes.

2. Just before it boils (little bubbles will appear on the sides), move it off the burner and toss in the tea bags.

3. Put something on top to trap the steam (Mama used to put a china saucer on the top of her kettle) and let steep for at least 10 minutes.

4. Pour the sugar into a half-gallon pitcher and add the still-warm tea. Stir, then add the remaining 1 quart water and stir a little more.

5. You can serve it over ice now, but I prefer to put a lid on the pitcher and chill it in the refrigerator till it gets nice and cold, so I don't have to dilute it with too much ice.

Makes 2 quarts

 

Wilted Country Salad

The beauty of this old-school Cracker salad is that it is supposed to be wilted, so there are no worries if you get chatting and forget to serve it right away. This salad will not lose its bounce.

2 heads leaf lettuce

6 green onions, thinly sliced

5 tablespoons cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

¹
/
₄
teaspoon ground black pepper

6 strips thick-sliced bacon, cooked till crisp

1. Rinse the lettuce, dry, and tear into bite-sized pieces.

2. Combine the onions, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper in a medium pan and simmer over low heat for 2 minutes, till the sugar is dissolved. Turn off the heat and stir in the cooked bacon to make a light dressing.

3. Just before serving, pour the hot dressing over the lettuce and toss.

Serves 4

 

Deviled Eggs

Deviled eggs are the classic accompaniment to fried chicken or baked ham, though Mama makes them for any sit-down meal. The eggs are so celebrated in Southern cooking that specially made little crystal egg dishes are frequent wedding gifts for young Cracker brides, all built for the enjoyment and presentation of the simple deviled egg.

6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and cut lengthwise in half

¹
/
₄
cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons minced onion

2 tablespoons minced dill pickle

¹
/
₄
teaspoon pickle juice

¹
/
₈
teaspoon salt

¹
/
₄
teaspoon ground black pepper

¹
/
₂
teaspoon dried dill

1. Remove the egg yolks from the whites and put the yolks in a medium bowl. Mash with a fork till smooth.

2. Add everything but the dried dill and stir well. Fill the empty egg whites with the mixture. If you're taking them to a public function, sprinkle them lightly with dried dill, which will lend a slightly dill taste and pleasing color variation. It will send a message to friend and foe alike that you're a Cracker who knows your way around a spice cabinet.

Makes 12

 

Hors d'oeuvre Pie

My buddy Miss Helen gave me this recipe. She isn't a Cracker by birth but Canadian (Canadian Yankees, we call them around here; a term both inaccurate and probably fighting words above the border). She has been a great audience for my stories for thirty years. When my first novel came out, another buddy of ours from church, Mr. Doug, wanted to read it, but he was blind and the book was too obscure to sell in audio. Miss Helen took the matter in hand and, over the course of many months, read it to him aloud to their equal enjoyment, as Doug was a New York Yankee who was much entertained by my Cracker
oeuvre.
I think the generosity of the gesture merits a lifetime membership to the Cracker species, something I know she has always aspired to.

2 frozen unbaked pie crusts, thawed

One 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

¹
/
₂
cup mayonnaise

TOPPING

¹
/
₂
cup crumbled blue cheese

3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

1 red onion, cut into thin rings

1 cup chopped green bell pepper

1 cup broccoli florets

¹
/
₂
cup cherry tomatoes

¹
/
₂
cup sliced black olives

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.

2. Roll out the pie crusts on a large baking sheet till they are flat and bake for 7 to 10 minutes, till brown.

3. Take the pie crusts out of the oven and while they are cooling, beat the cream cheese and mayonnaise in a mixer bowl till light.

4. While the pie crusts are still warm, spread the cream cheese mixture on top as you would spread sauce on pizza dough.

5. Top with the blue cheese, chopped eggs, onion, bell pepper, broccoli, tomatoes, and black olives.

6. To serve, cut into wedges with a serrated knife.

 

Graham Cracker Crust

This is an all-purpose graham cracker crust that can be used with all cream pies. If you're adventuresome, you can add a pinch of cinnamon or
¹
/
₄
cup ground nuts.

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

¹
/
₄
cup sugar

¹
/
₄
cup sweet butter, melted

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.

2. Mix the graham cracker crumbs and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Add the butter and stir well.

3. Pour the mixture into a 9-inch pie plate and press evenly over the bottom and up the sides.

4. Bake for 6 to 7 minutes to set.

Makes one 9-inch pie crust

 

Sweet Potato Cream Pie

This pie is what happens when you leave a cheesecake and a sweet potato pie alone in the refrigerator overnight, unchaperoned: the midnight tryst, the tearful confession, and nine months later, the pitter-patter of a new little pie around the house. In this case, it is a happy accident. Birth dates and wedding anniversaries are adjusted and no one is ever the wiser.

One 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

1 cup mashed cooked sweet potato

¹
/
₂
cup packed light brown sugar

¹
/
₄
cup granulated sugar