Good Fences

by Erika Ellis

In this exciting novel, an upwardly mobile black family moves to the affluent suburbs--with dramatic, sexy, funny, and provocative results. Mabel Turner, born and raised in the small and all-black town of Lovejoy, Illinois, meets and marries Tom Spader, a driven man, who shares her dreams of the good life. Together they flee Lovejoy, Tom becomes a successful attorney at a prestigious law firm, and eventually they move to Greenwich, Connecticut. At first, life in the elite suburb is like paradise--they seem to have finally knocked down the fences between themselves and the white American dream. But soon they discover that some of the highest fences are the ones they cannot see. The kids act up and out, and Mabel feels she has to hide who she really is, secreting Jet magazine under her fancy new sofa cushions and serving expensive gourmet cookies to the other PTA mothers. In the novel's startling climax, these problems are suddenly overshadowed by the very odd behavior of Mabel's neighbors, and of Tom, too. Fresh, illuminating, and written in a captivating voice, Good Fences introduces a strong new fiction talent, with a can't-put-it-down story.

Genres: African American, Fiction, Literary Fiction

216 pages, Hardcover

First published May 19, 1998

Reviews

[Efundunke · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was okay. There was some language that I like. I get the issues in the book, but it seemed like all of the characters fell flat and desperate by the end of the story. Tom setting the house ablaze so his black "ghetto" neighbor with the inheritance couldn't buy anymore property on their white block. Mabel turning "crazy" hearing her parents voices but finally making a friend out of the Crisp woman whose house her husband sat on fire. Stormy going to Paris and making a stripper of herself, Hilary being a black panther-turned school teacher who thinks her kids are stupid but realizes the understand the issues affecting their world, and Tommy-two getting his girlfriend pregnant while at Morehouse and accepting his responsibilities as a dad without telling his parents who think he's still enrolled at school. Just wrapped up too neat in such a messy and disfunctional way.

[atom_box Evan G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snappy dialogue: the scenes come alive if you read them out loud. The fast paced verbal melee in the young men's dormitory would work great on stage, for example. The 1950s scenes felt corny and sleepy at first but the pace accelerates and later, Ellis revisits the 1950s parts, remixing those events, to great effect. I'm glad I read the rest: Fences is probably one of my top books of the year.

Ellis made an arc that reminded me of Ian McEwan the way she had early events come back powerfully later in the book. The writing style is efficient; the book is careful with its words.

I feel sad to see it out of print. It aged very well and deserves to be widely read today. Tip of the hat to Paul Beatty for excerpting Erika Ellis in the humor anthology, Hokum.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Mabel Turner, born and raised in the small and all-black town of Lovejoy, Illinois, meets and marries Tom Spader, a driven man, who shares her dreams of the good life. Together they flee Lovejoy, Tom becomes a successful attorney at a prestigious law firm, and eventually they move to Greenwich, Connecticut. At first, life in the elite suburb is like paradise--they seem to have finally knocked down the fences between themselves and the white American dream. But soon they discover that some of the highest fences are the ones they cannot see. The kids act up and out, and Mabel feels she has to hide who she really is, secreting Jet magazine under her fancy new sofa cushions and serving expensive gourmet cookies to the other PTA mothers. In the novel's startling climax, these problems are suddenly overshadowed by the very odd behavior of Mabel's neighbors, and of Tom, too."
I found this a very interesting book ---how this black couple overcame all the differences of living where they were and in moving on up, trying to live with all white people – what happens when a fellow black person moves in and how they handled what they’re given in life with their two children.

[K]

This is a book about a black man who is run out of his southern town as a teenager and rises to the top of the legal world at the cost of his heritage. It is a great story of achieving the American dream and assimilation. He has three children that embrace their heritage in very different ways.

[Gerry Durisin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as I had anticipated from reviews. The story of a black family that broke the color line in upper middle class Greenwich Conn, and the price they paid in terms of self-respect for trying to live a lifestyle ‘acceptable’ to their white neighbors.

[Terry]

I was so confused. I somehow forced myself to finish this book and made it. I couldn't begin to explain to anyone what this book was truly about because much of it was incomprehensible for me. Sad, but I cannot say I enjoyed this at all.