Trouble in July

Description

In Trouble in July, first published in 1940, Caldwell describes several perilous days at Flowery Branch in the Georgia back country of sandhills and piney woods. Katy Barlow, a wild white girl, accuses Sonny Clark, an innocent black passerby, of attacking her on a roadside. As a lynch mob assembles, Sheriff Jeff McCurtain goes fishing for a few days to avoid the problem. Judge Ben Allen, the county political boss, orders law officers to make a show of trying to catch the Negro but to give in to lynch sentiment. Harvey Glenn, a young cotton farmer who doubts Sonny’s guilt but fears the vengeance of his neighbors, turns the fugitive over to an angry mob. The novel has been illustrated with affecting documentary photographs from the Farm Security Administration and other sources.