A Halloween and Other Scary Mississippi Things

A HALLOWEEN AND OTHER SCARY MISSISSIPPI THINGS’ reason for being is overall a fun read. Its theme is, in small town Mississippi, there are those who take care of one another, no matter the color of their skin. Set in the mid-1950s, in fictional Bishop, Mississippi, the novel is written in the first person voice of nine/ten year old Kaye Harvey Summerall. Through humor the much maligned (at least in her eyes) Kaye Harvey introduces both her characters and her plots. The lesser of these is the Jolene Blasingame husband hunt. The main plot centers around the surprising aftermath the Halloween Kaye Harvey witnesses Ambrosia Dillingham, one of her most central characters, murder Goat Honeycutt. Here the novel takes on a more serious tone as it explores the relationship between the races, and attempts to show what brings them together, what keeps them apart. Yet in so doing it does not lose its humor largely due to the reactions of her characters. By the book’s conclusion, her plots resolved, exits provided for her characters, there is a bittersweet ending when Kaye Harvey and her best, and in truth only, friend, the recent Yankee Lenoar Cole, must part. This is because Lenoar’s guardian, Jolene Blasingame, at long last lands a Blue Mountain, Mississippi, husband while Kaye Harvey, left behind in Bishop, embarks on yet another of her mother’s schemes-if it kills them both--to turn her into a lady.