"This Romeo/Juliet story set in the mountains of Virginia in the 1870s
depicts a life and time largely forgotten now. Jimmie Sue, a white farm boy,
and Madeleen, a colored sharecropper girl, although mutually attracted to
each other, must deal with a greater obstacle than having different family
names, such as the Capulets and Montagues in Shakespeare. Jimmie Sue
was not so interested in a sheet of paper to certify their relationship, but
Madeleen would have no part of an arrangement that was not ""blessed of
the Lord.""
Their shared experiences in the fields, the churches, the baptism
creek give them many contact opportunities, which are duly celebrated
yet constantly thwarted.
Although the focus is on these two teenagers, the story gives some
insight into the post-civil war racial relationships in the mountains... quite
different from the more normally accepted tales of the plantations."
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