Purple Hearts
978-0-87565-362-4 Hardcover (Printed Case)
6 x 9. 368 pp. 7 b&w illus.
Pub Date: 04/02/2008
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When Georgie’s epilepsy comes to light, he is discharged, and on returning home he suspects that his bride and the boarder are lovers. But wartime conditions explode into rioting, and that uproar puts them at odds with the town when Georgie helps a black friend flee.
Purple Hearts is based loosely on events in Beaumont, Texas, in July of 1943, when shipyard workers rampaged following a rumor that a black man had raped a sailor’s wife. Several people died and scores were injured, and that riot echoed those in Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Writer/critic Bryan Woolley has hailed Purple Hearts as “the best novel I’ve read about the home front during World War II . . . [it] illumines the dark fact that there was more to that home scene than Rosie the Riveter and War Bond drives.”
About the Author
Published by Texas Christian University Press