No joy in carrying unbearable secrets
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“In West Mills” by De’Shawn
Charles Winslow
c.2019, Bloomsbury
$26.00 / $35.00 Canada
263 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The burden on your shoulders
is heavy.
Your whole body sags with the
weight of things you know but
can’t tell, and each new whisper
adds to the pack. Secrets you
carry are more than you can
bear sometimes, which is why
you need to share them — but
in the new book “In West Mills”
by De’Shawn Charles Winslow,
there’s virtue in hushing up.
Azalea “Knot” Centre was
in the process of throwing her
man, Pratt, out of the house
for the last time. Or maybe she
wasn’t because, although she
hated having him underfoot,
scolding her for evenings spent
at Miss Goldie’s bar, she also
loved Pratt.
It was true that Knot drank a
lot; even Otis Lee Loving, Knot’s
best friend down the road, told
her so. Otis Lee and his wife,
Pep, worried about Knot. When
Knot woke up one day and realized
that she was pregnant, they
worried even more.
Seems that was what Otis Lee
did best: worry.
After he found a nearby family
to take Knot’s daughter
and raise her up, Otis Lee and
Pep warned Knot not to sleep
around anymore but pretty soon,
Knot’s belly grew big again. She
mourned for months about her
first girl-child, who was named
Fran, and when Otis Lee found
another family for the second
girl, Knot mourned again. Otis
Lee knew he’d have done the
same thing, much as he loved
his own son, Breezy.
And time passed in West
Mills. Knot’s girls were raised
almost right beneath her nose
and Otis Lee and Pep kept her
secret. There was no use telling
those girls about who’d given
them birth, just like there was
no reason to tell Otis Lee the
secret about his family that
Knot had heard from another
friend. There was just no sense
in hurting Otis Lee with that
information.
But in a little North Carolina
town like West Mills, secrets have
a way of escaping. Sometimes,
they’re slippery little things.
And sometimes, they’re let go
in anger and revenge…
“In West Mills” is one of those
novels that makes you want to
pause.
It’s slow, that’s it. It takes
place over decades, as its two
main characters grow, for better
or worse, and age together and
apart. At first, you might even
think that it’ll never get to the
point — although it seems that
is the point.
Yes, this novel works its way
through slowly, but you’d be
hard-pressed to find a tale that
depicts friendship any better.
Author De’Shawn Charles Winslow
puts truth in this novel,
in the form of frustration and
exasperation real friends have
between them, even though
they love one another fiercely.
He does that without ruining
the story with too much silly
drama, and there’s your slowdown
factor.
In the end, though, that
offers a languid, hazy feeling,
somewhat like walking barefoot
down a dusty Carolina road on
a summer’s day. It makes you
want to linger.
In the end, that makes “In
West Mills” a book that’s no burden
to enjoy.
Book cover of “In West Mills” by De’Shawn Charles Winslow.
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