TALMADGE FARM

In this generational drama set in the 1950s and ’60s, the moral failings of a prominent businessman in North Carolina sow the seeds of his own destruction.

Gordon Talmadge is accustomed to getting what he wants. He owns a major tobacco farm in Hobbsfield, North Carolina, and owns and operates Farmers and Merchants Bank, a business he inherited from his father, Stephen. A brash, blustery man, he’s as selfish as he is bigoted and chronically unfaithful to his wife, Claire. His son, Junior, is just as mean-spirited and self-obsessed, and although Gordon is all but oblivious to his vices, Claire is not. One evening, Junior, who’s white, attempts to rape Ella Sanders, the daughter of Black sharecropper Louis Sanders and his wife, Ivy, who works for Gordon as a cook.Ella’s brother, Jake, attempts to intervene, but it’s Ella who successfully fights Junior off, leaving him with serious injuries. Jake is terrified he’ll be blamed and leaves for Philadelphia to start a new life; later, Gordon refuses to entertain the possibility his son is at fault. Daughtry chronicles the fortunes of the Talmadge and Sanders families as the world begins to abruptly change, ushering in new mores, laws, and business practices, including desegregation. He deftly documents the pains of adjustment, especially for those who resist societal change; Gordon is shown to be constitutionally incapable of adapting to it—a limitation that ultimately leads to the demise of his commercial empire. Jake, meanwhile, embarks on a career as a medical doctor.

At the heart of the novel is a thoughtful meditation on the inexorability of change, and what happens when justice results in a redistribution of success. Also, Daughtry presents a provocative profile of nepotism in these pages; for all of Gordon’s success, it’s made clear that he was never a superior businessman whose skill brought him riches; in fact, he simply inherited a thriving empire that required very little from him to continue as it always had. Likewise, Junior is shown as being coddled and protected by Gordon, despite his horrific behavior, which results in him becoming something of a moral facsimile of his father. (It’s revealed that, like Junior, Gordon is a sexual predator.) However, the moral power of the story as a whole is undermined by its lack of nuance. Gordon’s failings, in particular, are painted with such a broad brush that he feels like a cartoon villain, and the portrayal of Jake makes him seem almost saintly at times. This feeling of absolutism gives the story a leaden quality, as there’s no doubt about whether good or evil will win out. At times, the story seems like a didactic sermon meant to edify the reader, rather than an exploration of a specific time and place with its accompanying moral questions. As a result, the novel, despite its dramatic eventfulness, feels quite unspectacular, as the reader will never find themselves wondering what will happen, or why.

An earnest historical novel that lacks the subtlety that might have lent it more power.