Originally published in 1994, when its author was 55, this wonderful novel makes its first appearance in the UK to mark its (almost) 30th anniversary, and instantly emerges as a small, perfectly formed classic.
It’s a US coming-of-age tale, and may or may not be based on Maxine Clair’s own life, set as it is in the mid-50s in her native Kansas, when she herself was coming of age. It tells the story of Irene Wilson, a young girl growing up in Rattlebone, the Black part of town. Like Harper Lee’s Scout, Irene is a watchful child, and when new teacher October Brown arrives in town, quickly making an impact both inside the classroom and out, Irene detects that a “no-name invisible something” has come to rupture her parents’ marriage. Her feckless father always did have a wandering eye, and October enjoys turning heads.
From here, the book fans out to tell the stories of other townsfolk, each trying diligently to make their way in a racially divided America. But this is a novel that focuses on the small things, and so while elections and race riots are taking place elsewhere, those in Rattlebone are more intimately concerned with homework, friends, the opening of a new dry-cleaning store. It’s only when October comes back into Irene’s life several years later, as the latter is applying for college, that Irene begins to glimpse a horizon that lies beyond home.
Clair is an exquisitely empathic writer, and imbues every page with poetry. “He touched me as if, slowly and gently, he were shaping my body into a woman. I found the steps awkward, but he was a born dancer. He set a rhythm, and unchained us both.”
Rattlebone did, back in 1994, win a couple of minor US literary awards, but wasn’t a bestseller. It’s lovely that Clair, now 84 and teaching creative writing, is still around to see its second life. It deserves to be widely read, a set text, cherished.
Rattlebone by Maxine Clair is published by Daunt (£9.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
