Severance

Severance, a small rural community in Eastern North Carolina, is rife with Jim Crow prejudice and steeped in ancestor worship. Josh Corey, scion of a revered local family, by appearance, has all the fruits accorded by privilege but has tragic secrets as well. He is burdened by unacceptable guilt for an act he has knowingly committed because it may bring shame and loss of status for his family; the prideful Coreys. As patriarch of the Corey clan this is a secret of even greater importance than the problems in his own storybook marriage and "perfect" family. Unable to reconcile these circumstances and compelled to act in some fashion, Corey takes his life in a most unusual manner casting doubt about the cause of his death. The community is unwilling to accept the fact that a member of an esteemed Severance family would die by an act of such cowardice as suicide and instead charges two light-skinned black twins with murder. Ironically these men were considered the illegitimate product of Pierre Corey, Josh's infamous uncle. The weight of local prejudice insured that the black twins would not receive a fair trial but "white justice" instead; that is until the arrival of Atticus Pettigrew, the son of a slave and the most renowned black attorney in America. The struggle between racial prejudice, a local passion for the status quo and for secrecy, family worship, and an emerging desire for change among a few citizens of Severance is the substance of the novel. The results from these competing forces are quite different from those expected by the community.