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The incendiary expletive that titles Johnnie Mae Cain's novel is uttered more than once in the course of its action by Teddy Sandom. The unorthodox heroine of an unorthodox tale, Teddy, though Caucasian in appearance, is a member of a racial minority who has experienced a great deal of suffering and persecution in her short lifetime.
At the opening of WHITE BASTARDS, she is seen creating a seemingly unwarranted disturbance in an Arizona diner. Her unprovoked hostility and intransigence baffle the police officer called upon to investigate the incident, and at loss for what to do, he commits her to a mental institution. Her inherent anger fueled by her temporary loss of freedom, Teddy sets into motion a series of events that ultimately have tragic consequences.
White Bastards also relates the simultaneously unfolding story of Susan Scott Blackmoore, a Mexican-American whose gullibility and vulnerability are compromised by an unscrupulous married man who impregnates her and gets her hooked on drugs.
Susan's narrow minded mother, ill equiped to deal with her daughter's plight, commits her to the hospital where Teddy is a patient. The young women are assigned to the same room, and for the hours that they are in close contact, a strange and ambiguous relationship develops. Drawn together by their non-whiteness, Teddy and Susan are also separated by their conflicting personal aims.
Coming at a time when readers have been inundated by factual and fictional treatments of racist America, WHITE BASTARDS achieves the well-nigh impossible by shedding new light on this oft-investigated situation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Johnnie Mae Cain was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and is a graduate of the Far Eastern Division of the University of Maryland, which she attended while living on Okinawa during the years 1961-65.
CONDITION: Hard Cover with DJ, DJ has much wear and tear and has been enclosed in a protective mylar cover. Book is very good condition, clean. 1973 stated FIRST EDITION, signed inside front cover, quite RARE. |
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