Adultery, incest, and questions of racial identity simmer beneath the
tranquil surface of suburban life in this novel, set in a small New
Jersey town of the early 1900s. Lovely young Laurentine is obsessed with
her bad blood, inherited from a common-law interracial union. Proud and
independent, she longs for the respectability of a conventional
marriage. Laurentine's vivacious and self-confident cousin, Melissa,
also aspires to marry up. But a family secret shadows Melissa's dreams
and ambitions as she approaches an explosive revelation.
African-American editor, poet, essayist, and novelist Jessie Redmon
Fauset (1882-1961) was a prominent figure of the Harlem Renaissance. An
editor of the NAACP magazine The Crisis, she was also an editor and
co-author of the African-American children's magazine, The Brownies'
Book. Her third novel, The Chinaberry Tree, draws upon elements of
Greek tragedy in its powerful depiction of interracial love and
marriage. The tale also offers a modern perspective on the struggle of
its African-American heroines toward self-knowledge.