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Tattered Coat by Mike H. Mizrahi
Tattered Coat, Mike H. Mizrahi’s most recent book, is an outstanding example of historical fiction. It is set just after the turn of the century in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and relates the tale of Hickory, a ten-year-old kid who sees a rape and murder.
Hickory knows he is innocent when Charles, a young Black man, is charged with the murder, but his drunken beast of a father drives him into the bush, far from the city, before he can tell the authorities what he has seen.
An Atlanta-based white woman named Anna, who has known Charles’ family for many years, comes back to Chattanooga to offer assistance. (Mizrahi fans would be familiar with her as the lead character of his earlier novel, The Great Chattanooga Bicycle Race.) Anna and Hickory join forces, but their every effort is deflected by the racist forces who run the city.
Mizrahi meticulously recreates the neighbourhood as it was more than a century ago. There is never a scene in a book without a sensory device to draw the reader into the action. He gives life to historical personalities like Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, whose Chattanooga Times he owned before founding the New York Times—a fact I had forgotten. Such details demonstrate the level of attention to detail Mizrahi put into this book.
The author never loses us despite using a variety of varying points of view to tell the story. Every voice matters and is unique. The characters are realistic and well-designed. The story is well-written and builds to a terrifying but rewarding ending. The closest book I’ve read in months to being impossible to put down is this one.
Even though the story takes place decades before our time, the bigotry it so poignantly portrays makes it pertinent to the present. I admired Mizrahi’s talent and gained a lot from his approach as a writer whose upcoming work is similarly historical fiction with intertwining threads of mystery and romance. Read this book. You won’t be disappointed.
About The Book
Hickory Crabtree, 10, didn’t intend to witness a murder that day. He stumbled right into it, fishing on the Tennessee River. From the award-winning author of The Unnamed Girl comes the gripping story about adversity and courage and family. The year is 1905 in the Jim Crow South. Hickory is drawn into a race against time to prevent an innocent man from hanging for a crime he didn’t commit.
Hickory knows he must tell the sheriff that the wrong man sits in jail. But if he doesn’t flee from his abusive father, he’s bound to end up dead himself. The dilemma brings him face to face with the real killer in a high-stakes carriage ride that spells certain doom for the boy.
Anna Gaines, a white socialite in Atlanta, returns to her hometown of Chattanooga, her marriage in tatters. Two families, one white and one black, drawn together in friendship out of adversity 10 years before, face another crucible. Can she help her friends weather the crisis of their lives while she’s navigating her own moment of truth?
Together, Hickory and Anna confront a city on the edge of a race war. And a murderer bound to escape with untold riches in a satchel.
Tattered Coat maintains considerable tension and suspense and reveals an unexpected twist in the page-turning final chapters. It’s a fascinating portrait of the struggle for women’s rights set in a Southern city fighting simultaneously to cast off the evil tentacles of bigotry. Readers will be glued to the story right up to the satisfying resolution.
The Review
Tattered Coat
9 Score
Tattered Coat weaves a tender story of friendship and faith at the turn of the twentieth century. Through it's compelling characters, the book skillfully describes the plight of Black Americans in 1905 who face severe limitations to their rights and the ongoing threat of lynching. In spite of the challenges of segregation and prejudice, the characters demonstrate great courage in their fidelity to each other. The book also sounds a hopeful note for the women of this bygone era who are just beginning to see economic and political reforms and greater opportunities for employment. The book will capture your heart. It is a must read!
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