Sunday, September 13th, 7-8:30 pm, led by Pam Seres

Red Clay, by Charles Fancher

Red Clay is a sweeping multigenerational saga about an enslaved Black family and the white family who owned them as the Civil War ends and Reconstruction begins.

In 1943, Adelaide Parker arrives in Red Clay, Alabama, at the home of a Black former slave the morning after his funeral, revealing: “a lifetime ago, my family owned yours.” She has come seeking answers from a family with whom she shares a name and a buried history neither side fully understands.

Spanning Red Clay, Alabama; Paris; the Côte d’Azur; and New Orleans, the novel explores ambition, betrayal, violence, redemption, and the painful legacies of slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow. Drawing on his own family history, Charles B. Fancher delivers a vivid tale of resilience, moral complexity, and unlikely respect amid enduring racial animus.