Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009
Alabama 1931 and nine black youths fight with white ‘trash’ boys all riding illegally on a freight train. Two white girls cry rape. The ensuing court case found the black boys guilty although one of the girls later retracted her statement. That is fact. This very fine novel recreates the episode through the eyes of the girl who changed her story and an ambitious female reporter incensed by the miscarriage of justice. It is an extraordinary book of race, class, prejudice, anti-Semitism and injustice, powerfully told and really capturing the north/south division of the time, but most importantly the racial hatred, very much in the vein of a fictional In Cold Blood.
Comparison: Jim Harrison, Pat Conroy.
Click here to read Ellen Feldman's post about racial prejudice in America.
Alabama, 1931. A posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths, ranging in age from thirteen to nineteen. Their crime: fighting with white boys.
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
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Closing date: 31/10/2026
Alabama, 1931. A posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths, ranging in age from thirteen to nineteen.
Scottsboro features in the following genres: Historical Fiction, Crime and Mystery, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, eBooks of the Month, Fiction, General Fiction, Recommendations
Paperback, Hardback. Not Available.
Scottsboro was written by Ellen Feldman and published by W.W. Norton and Company an imprint of W. W. Norton & Company
Scottsboro has 378 pages
