Publisher: Jackleg Press
Publication: August 1, 2023
Sweetbitter takes place in east
Texas in 1910 during the time of white rule-not by law but by lynch mob. Amid
the suffocating racism and fear, half-Choctaw, half-white Reuben Sweetbitter
and Martha Clarke, a white woman, fall in love.
This is an authentic, richly
detailed novel with themes of sacrifice, fear, and the loss of one's identity,
inspired by Gibbons' family -- whose paternal grandfather was half-Choktaw --
and his experiences growing up in protestant evangelical Texas where racism and
white supremacy was rampant.
Library Journal writes: "Atypical
of love stories, this realistic work maintains a historical perspective in
lending the couple short-lived happiness."
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Excerpt:
PROLOGUE
Many generations ago Aba, the great spirit above, created many men, all Chahtah, who spoke the language of the Chahtah, and under- stood one another. They came from the heart of the earth and were made of clay, and before them no men had ever lived.
One day they all gathered and looking upward wondered what the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds were made of. They determined to try to reach the sky by building a great mound. They piled up rocks to build a mound that would reach the sky but at night the wind blew from above so strongly that the rocks fell down. The second day, too, they worked, building the mound but again that night the wind came while they slept and it pushed down their work. On the third day they began yet again. But that night the wind blew so hard it hurled the rocks of the mound down upon the builders themselves.
They were not killed, but when daylight came and they crawled out from beneath the rocks that had fallen on them and they began to talk to one another, they discovered that they could no longer understand each other. They spoke many languages instead of one. Some of them spoke the original language, the Chahtah language. Others, who no longer spoke this language, began to fight with those who did. Finally they separated. The Chahtah remained, the original people, and lived near nanih waya, the mound they had not been able to complete. And the others went north and east and west and encountered more tribes.
In this way or some other, all the peoples of the earth were created, each from some substance and thus of diļ¬erent appearance, and at times struggling against each other. This is what the Chahtah told to a white missionary. But this was only a little of what the Chahtah knew. It was not for that man to know everything. And then he wrote mistaken things about them.
Excerpted from SWEETBITTER
by Reginald Gibbons © 2023 by Reginald Gibbons, used with permission from
JackLeg Press.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Many generations ago Aba, the great spirit above, created many men, all Chahtah, who spoke the language of the Chahtah, and under- stood one another. They came from the heart of the earth and were made of clay, and before them no men had ever lived.
One day they all gathered and looking upward wondered what the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds were made of. They determined to try to reach the sky by building a great mound. They piled up rocks to build a mound that would reach the sky but at night the wind blew from above so strongly that the rocks fell down. The second day, too, they worked, building the mound but again that night the wind came while they slept and it pushed down their work. On the third day they began yet again. But that night the wind blew so hard it hurled the rocks of the mound down upon the builders themselves.
They were not killed, but when daylight came and they crawled out from beneath the rocks that had fallen on them and they began to talk to one another, they discovered that they could no longer understand each other. They spoke many languages instead of one. Some of them spoke the original language, the Chahtah language. Others, who no longer spoke this language, began to fight with those who did. Finally they separated. The Chahtah remained, the original people, and lived near nanih waya, the mound they had not been able to complete. And the others went north and east and west and encountered more tribes.
In this way or some other, all the peoples of the earth were created, each from some substance and thus of diļ¬erent appearance, and at times struggling against each other. This is what the Chahtah told to a white missionary. But this was only a little of what the Chahtah knew. It was not for that man to know everything. And then he wrote mistaken things about them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Reginald Gibbons’ works include An
Orchard in the Street (BOA Editions), Creatures of a Day (a Finalist
in poetry for the National Book Award, LSU Press), and his most recent book of
poems, Renditions (Four Way Books).
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