Overview

A haunting tale of brotherhood, betrayal, and resilience in the face of defeat. Arkansas, 1927. When a late spring frost decimates the apple harvest, the Fitch family orchard collapses under the weight of ruin. Jesse Fitch, weary and pragmatic, prepares to leave the land behind with his wife and young son. But his identical twin, Silas-stubborn, rooted, and haunted by legacy-refuses to abandon the soil that shaped their families. Before the Fitches can part ways, a sudden tragedy unearths a long-buried secret-binding the brothers even as it tears them apart. As grief deepens and loyalties fracture, Jesse and Silas find themselves on opposite sides of a battle that threatens to unravel their family's legacy. Bloodlines stretch to the breaking point, and the survival of the Fitch clan hangs in the balance. Set against the fading rhythms of a Southern landscape in turmoil, Arkansas Black is a lyrical reflection on inheritance, identity, and the fragile threads that hold a family together when everything else falls apart. Arkansas Black is titled after the namesake apple variety from Northwest Arkansas. The story unfolds in 1927, during the collapse of the Arkansas apple industry, which was once the pride of the South. Arkansas Black is the 2023 Winner of the William Faulkner Literary Award.

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Reviews

Secrets, lies, and failing crops are tearing a family, and their farm, apart in Blevens' historical novel. It's 1927 in Benton County, Arkansas, and 30-year-old Jesse Fitch lives on his family farm with his 27-year-old wife, Marybeth, and their son Levi, who's 7. His twin brother, Silas, is also there, as are Silas' wife and daughters, and the siblings' father, known as ""Paps."" The land has been in their family for several generations, but it's not producing like it used to do. A late frost, too much rain, and continued pest infestations have kept the trees from growing fruit, which means no money's coming in for the family. Jesse is sure that the answer is to give up the farm and head west, but Silas and Paps are dead set against the idea, believing that the trees will fruit again next year. Jesse, however, knows the score: The Fitches owe more to the bank than the land is worth, but Silas swears everything will be fine. However, as determined as Silas is to stay on the land, he knows they need cash to stave off eviction, so he starts working with some locals that need an out-of-the-way farm to hide and smuggle illegal liquor. Jesse wants nothing to do with this arrangement, but Silas is willing to lie, heat, or worse if it means staying on the land. Over the course of this historical novel, Blevens presents a compelling tale of hardship. Although the brothers are twins, they effectively act as foils to each other, and as they go about protecting their families in different ways, they manage to work with and against each other, by turns. There are vivid descriptions of the land (""He passed a cottonwood trunk, three feet in diameter with furrowed gray-brown bark, leaning over the river where the erosive wandering of the channel had robbed the tree of its tenuous clutch on the sandy bank"") and the Fitches' hardships, making this work a journey into the past that readers can inhabit, and they'll feel the family's pain and loss as they experience it. A vivid and often touching novel of the fragility of family bonds.-Kirkus Reviews (Get It) ""...raw, lyrical intensity that evokes the Southern landscape in all its beauty and brutality."" -Indies Today ""It is one of those books with an ending that will linger like the taste of the last apple of the season, sharp, bittersweet, and unforgettable."" -Shanessa Gluhm, author of A River of Crows ""An eloquently cinematic Southern Gothic tale, ... Arkansas Black depicts a world where blight destroys the land and infects the hearts of humans."" -Kathy Maresca, Christy Finalist author of Porch Music ""A story of a family's implosion amid forces mostly beyond their control, Arkansas Black is at turns tense, lyrically descriptive, and heartbreaking. Alexander Blevens brings this era of agricultural and economic transformation to life with a visceral realism that puts flesh on the bones of Ozarks history."" -Brooks Blevins, author of A History of the Ozarks ""... a transportive historical novel crafted with equal parts poetic prose and propulsive pacing. ... Blevens gives us characters as real and raw as the rural landscape they inhabit. Perfect for fans of Charles Frazier or Robert Gwaltney."" -James Wade, Reading the West Award-winning author of Narrow of the Road ""Intricate layers of betrayal, loyalty, and redemption unravel with a pace that is both deliberate and gripping."" -Johnnie Bernhard, author of Hannah and Ariela ""It's a beautiful, epic tale of an American family drawn apart as much as they're drawn together."" -Rob Samborn, best-selling author of The Prisoner of Paradise

Author Information

Alexander Blevens is an Air Force veteran and a retired orthopaedic surgeon who lives and writes on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He is the author of the debut novel Bycatch. His latest award-winning novel, Arkansas Black, is loosely based on his family's early twentieth-century ancestral roots on a farm in Northwest Arkansas.

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