Leave the Night to God

Twelve-year-old Frankie Walker's whole world is baseball, Daddy, and foxhunting. Daddy's stroke forces Frankie to learn to survive on his own—or become a permanent resident of the Missouri Orphan's School and Residence. With the help of a fellow orphan, Frankie bolts the orphanage and hooks up with a Black barnstorming baseball team and their young, female pitcher, Linda. But nothing good can last. When Linda drops him at the bus station, so he can join Daddy in Kansas, he's mistaken as Linda's child and abducted by the Ku Klux Klan. Facing death by torture, Frankie is saved by Paul. When Frankie and Daddy finally reunite, Daddy's stroke has left him stiff and silent as a tombstone. There'll be no more nights chasing their foxhounds, but Frankie has learned on his long and harrowing journey that he's a survivor. Set in America's Midwest of the 1950s where racial injustice still has a tight grip, Leave the Night to God proves that kindness may be found in unexpected places, that "family" is not about the color of one's skin, and to remain true to one's values is what it means to be a man.