Violet loves Laney’s baby Cubby and babysits him. Violet and Laney grew up together, share secrets, even do the household chores together. She attempts to deal with this by making Violet and her slave Laney friends. For example, Nickerson seems to realize that depicting a young woman whose family owns slaves and making that woman the heroine is going to be a problem. The book, however, seems unsure exactly how to deal with racial politics even while it seems clear it knows that it has to.
So these depictions and their problematic implications could have easily be edited out and improved the book in more ways than one. Furthermore,the voodoo really doesn’t add much to the plot but seems like it was awkwardly tacked on to a standard Union-Confederate forbidden romance story. In a book where race and racial politics must always be at the forefront, associating Black characters with dark powers and wrongness is…well, it feels wrong.
and are referred to as (by another Black character) “People-things” to indicate that they are not normal. They move strangely, are associated with snakes. This gets incredibly awkward since it means that the people of the town see the African men and women as something other than people. Because they are invoking mysterious powers, Nickerson wants to depict them as strange and other-worldly. In Nickerson’s retelling of “Tam Lin,” the fairies are replaced by voodoo practitioners. The uncomfortable depiction of slavery and Black individuals is in, fact, part of the reason the plot feels like such a mess. Unfortunately, the plot feels a little messy and the depiction of slavery indicates that, even though Nickerson seems to be attempting to deal with the difficulties inherent in discussing such a terrible topic, she ultimately is unable to avoid reinforcing stereotypes or to avoid the influence of the narrative of the Lost Cause. Her interest in the Southern Gothic combined with a story of forbidden love makes the story intriguing. Jane Nickerson’s The Mirk and Midnight Hour reimagines the Scottish tale of “Tam Lin” in Civil War-era Mississippi. But why are the mysterious VanZeldts caring from him? Will he be a victim of their dark powers? A retelling of “Tam Lin.” Review Unexpectedly, he’s handsome and intelligent, nothing like she thought a Yankee would be.
Then Violet and her young cousin Seeley find an injured Union soldier in the woods.
Unfortunately, her new stepmother is addicted to laudanum, her stepsister Sunny is an obnoxious flirt, and her cousin Dorian seems charming but could mean trouble. With her twin brother dead and her father gone off to fight for the South, Violet Dancey is trying to hold her life together.
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