“Toussaint Wright stepped onto Ephraim Avenue with a backpack slung over his shoulder and a bleeding cut on his cheek. He was thirteen years old. Two years before, a fire had consumed 248 Ephraim Avenue, where Toussaint used to live. The fire destroyed most everything he loved. Nothing remained but a few girders inside the charred hull of the house and a scorched old oak tree out front.”
Before chapter one, there is a prologue, and this passage is the first paragraph of that prefatory introduction. A quick scan of the contents reveals that the author has separated this novel into sections which are themselves divided into subtitled chapters. Each of the three sections is named after a year: 1985, 1986, and 1988. Notably missing is 1987. This opening paragraph of the book offers no concrete information on the year in which it takes place, but it does indicate the age of Toussaint. This decision by the author to open the story with a bit of chronological ambiguity could be viewed as a clue that the events described occurred during that missing year, 1987. What is significant is that the story immediately commences with important information that also immediately creates tension from mystery. Throughout the next four paragraphs roughly equal in length to this one, much is learned about Toussaint’s present but there is little context with which to make assumptions. Therefore, it cannot be established exactly where this prologue fits into the timeline of the book. This selection is notable for effectively creating interest in a main character.
“We had a town placard: Bonaparte, Alabama, Negro Incorporated Town, established 1868 . Used to be Caro re-did it every few years and kept it staked on the road by the Oaks. Till a few years ago the white folks never touched it, they thought it was cursed.”
The third-person narration in the prologue gives over to multiple narrative voices and one of them is Dutchess. As it turns out, the chronological clues provided in the contents are actually misleading. Quite a significant chunk of the narrative is devoted to one of those segregated small towns actually run by former slaves in the wake of Reconstruction. Bonaparte, Alabama becomes a location that is seamlessly integrated into the story taking place in the 1980s. As is true with many of those segregated small towns actually governed by their black residents, Bonaparte eventually finds that it is not as immune to racial hatred and white capitalist interests as used to be. This story of institutional racism in the South always determined to raise its head and try to get things back to their antebellum highlight is juxtaposed against the different sorts of racism that marked the urban centers of the North in the wake of the Great Migration.
“Pastor Phil was talking about a book called Philemon, which Toussaint had never heard of, and a man named Onesimus, who Paul told Philemon to be nice to when he got back to town after being in jail… Pastor Phil returned to Philemon…Mr. Peeples said the point was that Paul was asking Philemon to free Onesimus.”
Paul’s Epistle to Philemon is unquestionably not among the most well-known books of the bible, at least not in churches serving primarily white congregations. It is an especially tricky part of the New Testament because it seems to exist only for the purpose of Paul irrefutably condoning slavery. The reference in this passage to telling Philemon “to be nice” to a runaway slave who has returned makes this very short section of the novel far more significant than it might seem. Toussaint was raised in a church-going environment and even he has never heard of this book of the bible. Paul’s letter to Philemon speaks to the overarching theme of the entire novel, incorporating elements both from the Bonaparte section in the past and the 1980s sections set in Philadelphia. That Mr. Peeples says the point of the story is Paul is asking for Onesimus to be freed from bondage directly speaks to the history of the civil rights movement and the rift that developed between the militant and non-militant arms. That interpretation of Paul’s letter is entirely dependent upon the perspective one brings to the subtext since there is nothing directly in the text that supports the conclusion Paul is condemning slavery. The real point of this passage within the context of the novel, however, is that the pastor is telling this story in the wake of a racist Philadelphia police action demonstrated inside the home of a black citizen. The question left lingering is what constitutes “being nice” to oppressive authorities.
