Inharmonious
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A compelling love story—inspired by the author’s own family history—set in the segregated South during and after World War II, perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Women and Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half.
When three young Black men enlist in the US Army hoping to serve their country with honor, their lives are forever changed.
When Pearl Harbor is attacked in 1941, Cora’s brother, Benny, rushes to enlist against the wishes of Cora and their mother. Able to pass as white due to his pale skin and light eyes, Benny reports for duty only to realize he’s been mistakenly enlisted as a white man in a racially segregated military.
Lee has been friends with Benny ever since he was a troubled teenager, and he’s been sweet on Cora for nearly as long. When Lee enlists without telling Cora, she is heartbroken and feels betrayed by the man she expected to spend the rest of her life with.
Meanwhile, family friend Roscoe, encouraged by Benny, offers to marry Cora in order to ensure that she and her mother—who both remain home—will be provided for should Benny not make it back.
Benny does return, but his new white identity leaves him struggling to find his place in between, in a country that only sees race. As America promises postwar prosperity to white veterans through the GI Bill, Black soldiers are excluded.
While the war may be over, the fight has only just begun for Cora, Lee, Benny, and Roscoe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Huf (A More Perfect Union) delivers a powerful story of two Black friends who enlist in the Army after Pearl Harbor and wind up with very different lives as veterans. In the wake of the Japanese attack, Florida resident Benny North, who is light-skinned, enlists and passes as white, while his friend Roscoe Crane, who is darker-skinned, is assigned to a unit for Black soldiers. Before deploying to Europe, Benny asks Roscoe to marry his sister, Cora, hoping that at least one of them will survive the war and return home to support her. Roscoe agrees, but their union is loveless, partly because Cora still loves her old beau, Lee, who has also enlisted. In Wales, Roscoe falls in love with a white woman and finds the type of acceptance he never had as a Black man in the U.S. But when he returns to Florida to fulfill his promise to Benny, he finds few prospects, and gets stuck in a demeaning job. Meanwhile, Benny is able to secure a mortgage through the GI Bill, but Roscoe is denied due to redlining. When Lee returns home, he and Cora advocate for Black veterans denied GI benefits, leading to intimidation from a racist mob that wields crowbars and tire irons outside Lee's house. Huf enhances the drama with engrossing romance subplots, but the heart of the novel lies in its depiction of inequality among WWII veterans and the danger in fighting it. This will move readers.
