In Wilcox’s first novel, African American characters exist on the periphery, present only in relation to the white characters. This reminds me, sort of, of the way that T. Geronimo Johnson presents the inhabitants of the Gully in Welcome to Braggsville (2015). The citizens of the Gully do become more fully realized later in the novel, but the initial discussions of them create a sense of mystery regarding who they are. I am not comparing the way that Wilcox and Johnson present their African American characters as a one-to-one correlation. I am just saying that I see similarities, possibly because I read them in such close proximity to one another. 

The first reference to an African American presence in Wilcox’s novel comes in the first chapter when the narrator discusses the train tracks, the tracks that have not seen a train since 1908. After that time, when the lumber company moved out, “the railroad became nothing but a dividing line between the side of town where Mr. Pickens lived and the side of town where Mrs. Wedge went every Thursday to pick up her maid” (8). Rather than having any of the action on the “other side of the track,” the entirety of the novel takes place in the white section of town.

Throughout the novel, only one African American really plays more than just a role on the edges. The Keely’s maid Moab shows up at various times in the novel; however, she does not say anything except a couple of lines at the very end. Elsewhere, Mr. Ray, Ms. Jenks’ handyman, gets mentioned periodically. Donna Lee worries about him, continually asking how he is doing and blaming Ms. Jenks for his sickly condition. However, she never attempts to either call on or see Mr. Ray. In fact, at the party at the end of the novel, Donna Lee tells Ms. Jenks to give Ray her love. The narrator then comments: “She knew Mr. Ray was lonely and in pain. But somehow she had never got around to [visiting him]. There was always so much work to do” (225). Donna Lee’s benevolence has its limits.

In one narrow sense, yes. When I went up to Yale at first, being polite and deferential was not the norm. Any categorical statement is suspect, but Henry Adams points out the tremendous difference between the South (which he did not particularly like) and the East, where people think they can fix everything–total self-reliance. A lot of my comedy comes from people like Donna Lee, who is Emersonian. She’s rejected all the things that she finds distressing about the Old South, and is going to be self-reliant and get her friends to be that way.