A-Z Wednesday: What the Bayou Saw by Patti Lacy

Title: What the Bayou Saw
Author: Patti Lacy
ISBN: 978-0825429378
Publisher: Kregel Publications/2009
Pages: 336

Back Cover:

Since leaving Louisiana, Sally Stevens has held her childhood secrets at bay, smothering them in a sunny disposition and sugar-coated lies. No one, not even her husband Sam, has heard the truth about what happened when she was almost twelve years old.

Now a teacher in Illinois, Sally has nearly forgotten the past. But when one of her students is violently attacked, Sally's memories of segregation, a chain link fence, and a blood oath bubble to the surface like a dead body in a bayou. Lies continue to tumble from Sally's lips as she scrambles to gloss over harsh reality. Finally cornered by her deceit and nudged by the Holy Spirit, she resolves to face the truth, whatever the consequences.

My views:

Sally has all but forgotten her past. It all comes back when one of her student's is brutally raped. Now that student is a coloured one. Sally finds racial prejudices all around her in the investigations. No one wishes for a white man to be involved in the crime. Sally has her misgivings and does not how to handle it.

Her memories come to surface. She remembers her childhood friendship with a coloured girl, Ella Ward. And also the secret they both shared. No one was aware of their umlikeliest friendship. Sally had let down her friend by keeping her mouth shut, which had affected Ella's family.

Now this incident makes Sally question herself. And she knows, she has to stop her lies to get to the bottom of it irrespective of the consequences. And she has to redeem herself in her friend Ella's eyes.

The novel raises the age old issue of race. Sally and Ella become friends. Ella can go to any length for Sally but Sally doesn't. Ella had hoped that Sally would come out with the truth but Sally doesn't. Sally's silence destroys their friendship.

Here we see Sally continue to lie at the drop of a hat. And it catches with her. When skeletons tumble out, she knows she has to tell the truth. It is pegged as a Christian fiction. That does not bother me as I feel that choosing rightous path is mandatory for everyone, irrespective of religion.

What is hidden in the Bayou is what we have to find out here.