Fic­tion

Ain’t No Grave

Mary Glick­man
By
Adi­na Bernstein
– December 30, 2024

There is noth­ing like love to undo the bonds of hate. It can open the doors to friend­ship, under­stand­ing, and com­ing togeth­er to fight oppression. 

Mary Glickman’s new nov­el, Ain’t No Grave, begins in 1906 in a small town in rur­al Geor­gia. The sto­ry fol­lows the rela­tion­ship of Max Sas­s­aport, the son of white mid­dle-class Jews, and Ruby John­son, the daugh­ter of non-Jew­ish Black sharecroppers. 

Although the peo­ple in their lives dis­ap­prove of their friend­ship, Max and Ruby are drawn to one anoth­er because of their mutu­al out­sider sta­tus. Years lat­er, the tri­al of Leo Frank threat­ens their rela­tion­ship and the ties between their com­mu­ni­ties. Max and Ruby are sim­ply two kids try­ing to get by in a world that keeps them down. Even though Max’s skin col­or and gen­der open doors that remain closed to Ruby, his faith still puts a tar­get on his back. 

What starts as a bond that is try­ing to sur­vive against all odds slow­ly turns into an event that reveals the dark­er sides of our col­lec­tive past. Hate and group­think give way to destruc­tion; log­ic and the abil­i­ty to act calm­ly go out the win­dow. The air crack­les with ener­gy. It is mere­ly (as we know now) a mat­ter of time before vio­lence occurs. 

Though Ain’t No Grave is short, it packs a wal­lop. In under three hun­dred pages, Glick­man com­bines fact and fic­tion in a man­ner that is both respon­si­ble and engag­ing. Ulti­mate­ly, the book holds onto the hope that we can all get along — a mes­sage that we all could use a dose of right now.

Adi­na Bern­stein has been a writer and blog­ger since 2014. She lives in Brook­lyn and needs writ­ing to sur­vive this crazy world we live in. She can be found online at https://​writer​gurl​ny​.word​press​.com/.

More from Adi­na Bernstein
amer­i­can south
race & ethnicity
jbc net­work

Discussion Questions

Cour­tesy of Mary Glickman 

  1. The child mur­der that is cen­tral to Ain’t No Grave​’s action occurs at a fac­to­ry in Atlanta, the Nation­al Pen­cil Fac­to­ry, dur­ing an era that saw mass employ­ment of chil­dren as young as nine. 
    1. In 1913, child labor was both legal and sub­stan­tial­ly dam­ag­ing to most chil­dren in the grasp of big Indus­try. Dis­ease fre­quent­ly swept through fac­to­ry pop­u­la­tions, not spar­ing its most vul­ner­a­ble, and on-the-job injury was com­mon. Protest was frequent. 
    2. In 1938, fed­er­al labor law out­lawed child work­ers in fac­to­ries and mines. Chil­dren under the age of 14 were per­mit­ted to work in agri­cul­tur­al jobs with parental per­mis­sion. That exemp­tion was born with the fam­i­ly farm in mind but is not restrict­ed to it.
    3. Across the globe, chil­dren are employed in fac­to­ries, mines, and fields with­out restric­tions or pro­tec­tions. Many Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions take advan­tage of that real­i­ty to pro­duce cheap­er goods.
    4. Cur­rent­ly in the US, chil­dren are allowed to work in cer­tain sec­tors (think tele­vi­sion actors, for exam­ple), but if the child is under 12, he/​she is restrict­ed to 3 hours of work per school day. 
    5. Chil­dren employed in agri­cul­ture may work up to 10 hours a day, depend­ing upon the sea­son. 
       

  2. The chief wit­ness dur­ing the tri­al against Nation Pen­cil man­ag­er Leo Frank was Jim Con­ley, the factory’s Black jan­i­tor, a man con­sid­ered the true mur­der­er post tri­al and lynch­ing, when his own lawyer broke the legal code of ethics to announce that Con­ley had con­fessed to him. (Two oth­er men came for­ward to report that while drunk, Con­ley con­fessed to them, too.)

    The case pit­ted Blacks and Jews against each oth­er as the streets of Atlanta erupt­ed first with racist and then with anti-Semit­ic protest. The shift from one brand of hate to anoth­er was quick. Peo­ple were fired up by the press. 

    What is the dif­fer­ence between racism and anti-Semi­tism? Is there one?

  3. For two years, Leo Frank was front page news. What about the case made it a sen­sa­tion? How much did the media of the day have to do with the trial’s result? With the com­mu­ta­tion of Frank’s sen­tence? With his lynch­ing? What stops the press from manip­u­lat­ing opin­ion today?
     
  4. Ain’t No Grave uses spir­i­tu­al­ist notes to fore­shad­ow, as points of ten­sion, and as metaphor. What are some exam­ples from the text?  (The pre­dic­tions of May­hay­ley Lan­cast­er, Uncle Mor­ris and his Siren, Max’s encounter with the snake preach­er.) 
     
  5. When they are first sep­a­rat­ed, Ruby hears Max’s voice in her head, advis­ing her as she makes her way to Atlanta. Back home in Buck­wood, Max calls to her across time and space but nev­er hears a response from her. What keeps them con­nect­ed until they reunite five years lat­er? Why does Ruby fear she’ll lose Max when they return to Buck­wood for a fam­i­ly emer­gency?
     
  6. Rab­bi Marx of The Tem­ple hosts Frank’s wife Lucille and lat­er, Sig­mund Liv­ingston at ral­lies sup­port­ing the defen­dant and rais­ing mon­ey for the fledg­ling ADL. How are these received by the com­mu­ni­ty at large? 
     
  7. Do you feel that the chal­lenges pre­sent­ed in Ain’t No Grave have par­tic­u­lar res­o­nance with the chal­lenges today’s Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty expe­ri­ence? In what way? In Frank’s day, a mul­ti­tude of Geor­gian Jews left the state. What would the prop­er response be today?

Sug­gest­ed Addi­tion­al Reading

  • And the Dead Shall Rise: the Mur­der of Mary Pha­gan and the Lynch­ing of Leo Frank, Steve Oney 2003, Ran­dom House

  • Black-Jew­ish Rela­tions on Tri­al: Leo Frank and Jim Con­ley in the New South, Jef­frey Mel­nick 2000, Uni­ver­si­ty Press of Mississippi

  • An Unspeak­able Crime: The Pros­e­cu­tion and Per­se­cu­tion of Leo Frank, Elaine Marie Alphin, 2010, Car­ol­Rho­da Books

  • Ora­cle of the Ages: Reflec­tions on the Curi­ous Life of For­tune Teller May­hay­ley Lan­cast­er, Dot Moore with Katie Lamar Smith, 2007, New South Books