A Review of Sunday's Child |
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"SUNDAY'S
CHILD"
This novel, one of a trilogy set on the Outer Banks, is a story that ebbs and flows like the waters lapping against the sands of Pea Island. At times calm and warm, sometimes rough and tumble, occasionally violent, the tale captures a sense of time and place and those brave souls who lived at the far reaches of our shores. It is a page-turner with an intricate plot that introduces the reader to a number of fascinating characters about whom they soon care a lot. The Pea Island Life-Saving Station, manned by an all-black staff, was soon to have a new resident. The cook, Slick Everette, a former prizefighter and womanizer, has fathered a child by an Elizabeth City prostitute who dies in childbirth. The baby is ferried to Pea Island and handed over to Slick by the furious madam on Sunday, the Fourth of July. The stunned men at the station discover the baby is a girl, and after a lot of animated discussion, they decided that "Sunday" would be a good name for the sleeping baby. Sunday Everette might not have a mother, but from her earliest days she was blessed with not only a doting father but seven adoring godfathers. Her needs were taken care of, and a supply of diapers and milk were delivered regularly by ferry. As she grew, she learned to swim, had remarkable eyesight, stood thin and tall and, with her hair cut short, could have passed for a boy. The men answered her myriad questions, amazed at her superior intelligence. Her father taught her how to fight. When she was 6, Sunday experienced her first exposure to racial prejudice on her first visit to Elizabeth City – the first time she had left Pea Island. Capt. Ben Searcy decided it was time to start Sunday's education, so he bought a "McGuffey's Reader" and started to teach her to read and write. Sunday did not like being cooped up inside, and finally Searcy came up with the idea of using a stick and the fresh-washed beach as a blackboard. But change was coming to the idyllic life of Pea Island. The Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration camps brought in many young men. In a dark incident, Sunday was raped by a group of drunken CCC youths led by the ringleader, Bummy, who also killed her dog. She bests them in a confrontation in which she calmly and deliberately shoots Bummy, but not to kill. That enmity will surface later to haunt Sunday. There are peaceful and productive times in Sunday's life, too. The culture of the area opens her eyes to history and customs, and in visits to Manteo and Elizabeth City, she learns the skill of administering herbal cures and grows up to be the successor to an ancient midwife. But her Eden is threatened. In 1942, with a war on, the life-saving station, as a branch of the Coast Guard, must evacuate all nonmilitary personnel. That means Sunday and her father, who was informally a part of the station, must leave. With help from the station staff, Sunday built a small-but-sturdy little house on a dune nearby. One day, she notices that the sand around her house has been disturbed, and later sees her father, a gun at his back, helping to carry small wooden boxes and burying them around her house. Slick attempts to escape, and, in a harrowing scene, Sunday sees one of the men mortally wound him. Then these invaders kill her new dog as he attempts to save Slick. Next, there is an explosion, and Sunday realizes that a submarine has blown up. In a frenzy, she takes her boat out and watches as a second German boat bares down on the one with her father's killer aboard. She sees the ramming boat's single occupant and knows he wasn't with the group that had been ashore. He is obviously hurt, and Sunday is able to rescue him. However, he can't talk because his throat was severely damaged by a bullet from the other boat. At last, through, she finds he speaks English, and through writing in the sand, he answers her questions. He had rammed the other boat and killed its occupants because they were responsible for blowing up the submarine he commanded in order to hide their theft of millions of dollars of Hitler's stolen gold. His name is Horst, but he answers to the name Charlie. At last, Sunday is truly in love. Because of his throat injury he cannot talk; they communicate by using Sunday's childhood skill – writing in the sand. Tom E. Lewis was born in Rocky Mount. Educated in the United States and
Europe, he had a successful 38-year-career as a symphony conductor here
and abroad. An award-winning author, he has written five previous novels
and a book of nonfiction. He lives in New Bern.
(This review appeared in the Rocky Mount Telegram edtion July 16, 2006)
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