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The Bootheel: A Novel
The Bootheel of Missouri is a land of cotton. It is flat, hot and humid. The days pass slowly, except at cotton-picking time when a frenzy sets in to harvest the crop. Over the years, the people of the region have suffered through earthquakes, flooding and racial unrest.
In the early 1950s, a young, white minister and his wife arrive in the Bootheel. Fresh out of seminary, the minister has accepted a call to be the pastor of what, unbeknownst to him, is an all-black church. The couple is viewed with suspicion by the white establishment and as curiosities by their black congregation. They become embroiled in an election campaign to unseat a bigoted county judge. The campaign descends into escalating acts of racial violence. When that violence reaches the minister's door, he must choose between the safety of his young family and devotion to his black parishioners.The couple's son, who was a fetus in the womb and a newborn infant when his parents were in the Bootheel, narrates the story. To do so, he must rely on the memories of others as well as his own imagination and life experiences, making The Bootheel as much his story as that of his parents.
320 pages, Paperback
Published October 22, 2025
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March 3, 2026
The Bootheel is a powerful and beautifully written story of race relations in the rural plantation environment of mid-twentieth century Missouri. (The "Bootheel" is the southeastern part of the state along the Mississippi River that extends below the main southern border like the heel of a boot.)
The novel's author, Burleigh C. W. Leonard, is also a poet and his lyrical approach to language enhances the beauty of the story. Near the beginning of the book he describes the Mississippi as a river "majestic in its sweep, mercurial in its moods ... always there and always flowing out of its upstream past towards its downstream future, its current something to beat against or surrender to." And in a way that choice, between "beating against" and "surrendering to," is the central theme of the book.
The story begins with a young white minister, the narrator's father, newly graduated from seminary and newly married eagerly accepting his first post as the pastor of the Sea of Galilee church in the Bootheel. Only after arriving in this remote rural location does he discover that his church is part of the American Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination and his congregation entirely black. Despite his initial sense of betrayal and anger over the deception in his hiring, the pastor stays and he and his wife develop personally and as a couple through the many challenges that they face. As stated in the publisher's summary, "The minister and his wife quickly discover they are strangers in a strange land, regarded as curiosities by their black parishioners and as threats by the white establishment that rules the Bootheel."
Over time they become accepted by their congregation and they identify an ally in the white community, the publisher of the local paper. With his assistance the minister decides to support a young, white, crop insurance salesman to run against a powerful and bigoted county judge. "What begins as a hopeful campaign quickly spirals into intimidation, reprisals and rising racial violence. When that violence reaches his own doorstep, the minister faces an impossible choice: protect his young family or stand with the parishioners who have come to trust him." [Publisher's summary]
Overall, this book reveals our common humanity and the courage that it takes to face up to extreme racial prejudice. I was so impressed by the importance of this theme and the beauty of the writing that I nominated The Bootheel for the 2026 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in fiction (see www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org). That prize, inaugurated in 2006, is "the first and only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace."
The novel's author, Burleigh C. W. Leonard, is also a poet and his lyrical approach to language enhances the beauty of the story. Near the beginning of the book he describes the Mississippi as a river "majestic in its sweep, mercurial in its moods ... always there and always flowing out of its upstream past towards its downstream future, its current something to beat against or surrender to." And in a way that choice, between "beating against" and "surrendering to," is the central theme of the book.
The story begins with a young white minister, the narrator's father, newly graduated from seminary and newly married eagerly accepting his first post as the pastor of the Sea of Galilee church in the Bootheel. Only after arriving in this remote rural location does he discover that his church is part of the American Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination and his congregation entirely black. Despite his initial sense of betrayal and anger over the deception in his hiring, the pastor stays and he and his wife develop personally and as a couple through the many challenges that they face. As stated in the publisher's summary, "The minister and his wife quickly discover they are strangers in a strange land, regarded as curiosities by their black parishioners and as threats by the white establishment that rules the Bootheel."
Over time they become accepted by their congregation and they identify an ally in the white community, the publisher of the local paper. With his assistance the minister decides to support a young, white, crop insurance salesman to run against a powerful and bigoted county judge. "What begins as a hopeful campaign quickly spirals into intimidation, reprisals and rising racial violence. When that violence reaches his own doorstep, the minister faces an impossible choice: protect his young family or stand with the parishioners who have come to trust him." [Publisher's summary]
Overall, this book reveals our common humanity and the courage that it takes to face up to extreme racial prejudice. I was so impressed by the importance of this theme and the beauty of the writing that I nominated The Bootheel for the 2026 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in fiction (see www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org). That prize, inaugurated in 2006, is "the first and only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace."
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