Country Place by Ann Petry

“Girl, well I heard the bitch was married to Tim’ and started fuckin’ with Trina
I heard the bitch got hit by three zebras and a monkey
I can’t stand the bitch no way” - Missy Elliot’s Gossip Folks

Y’all this book!!!!!! Mess on 10!!!

Ann Petry has been on of those authors I’ve always wanted to read but never seemed to actually pick up. Some bookish content creators have even held book clubs to read her work and somehow I managed to not participate. I believe this is due to classic books equalling “difficult to read” in my head(both topic and language structure). I think of school, I think of ‘and what do you think the red paint really means?’ type of analysis. I’m slowly on my journey of reading more classics with an emphasis on Black classics.

Glory glory glory let me tell you!! I am so glad I picked up Country Place! This was some small town mess! Lets get into it:

The story starts by our narrator telling us that he has a story he’d like to share. But first he lets us know that he does not like women. Okay wow great start. He goes as far as to say he hates females of all species! Sir if you don’t hush up…
He tells us he is going to give us the true account of this story…now sit down cause this is what he says “I believe this to be a true account, but truth has may sides, and, as I said before, I am not wholly without bias where females are concerned.”….
So already I’m going into this with a side eye. I’m already preparing to not listen to him, I’m not solidifying his descriptions of women nor their motives. I’m prepping to read between the lines.

We begin by following Johnnie, he is a young man back from the war. He is SO excited to be back home with his wife. He’s been thinking about her, dreaming about her…fantasizing about her 👀 ..you get it.

Johnnie is in a taxi driven by the character known as The Weasel. As they drive around Johnnie is looking at the town with a new lens, was that tree always there? What an odd place for a church, how had he never noticed that? As he ponders and looks out the window The Weasel notices and says “After you ain’t seen something for a while you see things in it you didn’t even know was there. Happens to everybody.”

As they continue the drive a man is spotted, this man is named Ed and Ed is known for sleeping with all the women in town…married or single…of all ages(lock him up!). The Weasel, the messy man he is, lets Johnnie know that he saw Ed with his wife a few times. SIR!? Johnnie is like um okay weird…but is so horned up he’s just excited to get home and see his wife.

Now, Johnnie’s wife is living in his parents home. When he eventually sees her home girl is coming off as very cold. Like she could give a shit that he is back home from war (my thoughts were swimming because was she really like this? Or was this the narrator’s prejudice?). When Johnnie iniciates some sexy time she is basically like ew no I don’t like you like that anymore I don’t want your hands on me. To which Johnnie responds by choking her out??!! 👀

So the story progresses from there. I’m not going to give you a by play because you just need to read this but oh my lanta does this get messy! We get interconnected characters, we get some back story, we get some action scenes, we get drama, and we get an ENDING!

After every few pages I was pausing to tell my husband what was going on because I just couldn’t believe all the turns this book took. The ending took us both out! I was hollering in the other room like “Babe you are not going to believe what just happened!”.

This was a great look at small town drama being up in everyones business for better…or for worse. To me this pointed out how people will protect predators. We see this on the daily and it’s on display here. The men are trash, the town knows this. They all know what’s going on and no one really does anything they just keep talkin. There’s an interesting dialogue in regards to ‘cold women’ that I would like to focus on in a re-read. Especially given the narrators perspective.

This felt like an ‘everyone sucks here’ type of story. Everyone has their flaws on display…but the men get all the excuses and benefit of the doubt.

Before I go I just gotta say The Weasel needs to be locked up…and that man would absolutely live for Bravo TV. That would be his bread and butter if this book was rewritten for the modern day.

I’m very much looking forward to diving into more of Ann Petry’s novels.