Reviewed by Andrea Sisco

Tom Bailey’s novel "Cotton Song" is set in Hushpuckashaw County, Mississippi. It’s a raw and visceral view of the relationships between blacks and whites in the south during World War II. Readers are invited into the story just after Letitia Johnson, a black nanny, is lynched, tarred and burned for drowning Dorothy, the infant daughter of her employer, Sissy. The accused had raised Sissy from birth.
Letitia’s 12-year-old daughter, Sally becomes a ward of the state and her case worker, Baby Allen is pregnant and estranged from her near-do-well, adulterous husband.

Baby learns that Sally’s life is in danger as the locals (the Klan) are determined to eek out further vengeance for baby Dorothy’s death.

Baby is initially unable to find a foster home for Sally and shelters her in her own home. The Klan visits Baby’s home one night, and after she shoots at her attackers, she realizes she must find a safe place for Sally. Jake Lemaster, the former one-armed college football hero (who is now second in command to his father, Boss Chief, head of Parchman Farm’s–the local penitentiary) becomes involved with Baby and Sally.

Jake and Baby don’t believe Letitia drowned Dorothy. Sally’s father is serving time at Parchman and is a powder keg waiting to explode. Sissy and husband Clyde have something to hide, and the guards at Parchman are waiting for their chance to ‘pay back’ Jake for interfering in their domain. On a hot Mississippi night in July, the lives of all that have been touched by Letitia’s death, meet and violence prevails.

Bailey writes with such clarity and passion that one can actually smell the wet heat of the cotton fields, are assaulted with the acrid odor of blood and repelled by the torture and brutality of man, with nary a drop of justice in sight.
I loved this novel. It is breathtaking, even in its brutality. At times I had to remind myself to breathe, and when I had finished, I didn’t want to believe that people could behave the way the characters in "Cotton Song" had behaved.

Sadly, I knew that these things could have happened and I wanted to wash the depravity of humans from my skin. I couldn’t.

Armchair Interviews says: A stunning novel. Warning: There is extreme brutality in this book.
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