The Tulipped Girl

The Trees written by Percival Everett follows a pair of MBI (Mississippi Bureau of Investigation) officers, Ed Morgan and Jim Davis to Money, Mississippi. As they investigate the gruesome murders of two Money residents. While conducting their police work they stumble upon the impossible, a second body present at the first crime scene that somehow follows them to the next scene as well. This unidentified Black male eerily resembles Emmett Till, even more impossible as Emmett Till was murdered and laid to rest in Drew, Mississippi some 70 years ago.

This book initially intrigued me through the same description I just gave you all. Though as the story develops and more bodies pop up in Omaha, Nebraska, Chicago, Illinois, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Longview, Texas and more, the more obvious the pattern becomes and yet the motive remains unanswered. You’re tasked to search as you read, look for similarities, connect the dots because it all seems incredibly impossible. 

The term “Deep South” refers to the cultural and geographic subregion of the southern U.S. mainly defined by its historical roots to plantation agriculture and consequently slavery. Encompassing South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, you might now understand why detectives Morgan and Davis are met with resistance from the racist White residents and the Sheriff and deputies of Money. While the rest of the world lives in the 21st century much of the deep south still operates like it is 1920. Word travels fast in Money so when news of the same unidentified Black male being present at the scene of both murders townsfolk quickly believe that the “African American, Negro” or some used “Colored man” killed the men for some incomprehensible reason. The detectives however suspect that they are killings of retribution.

One of the most infamous lyrics from True Believer by Hayley Williams (former lead singer of band Paramore) is: 

“The South will not rise again 

 Til it’s paid for every sin” 

In this novel the past in various ways refuses to be buried, a new era has begun, one where those who went unchecked before are forced to pay now. I was initially shocked at the rawness of the story, the descriptiveness, and the vernacular. With just 300 pages this book had me rooting for the uprising and I couldn’t help but imagine what a lifetime like this would’ve called one to do.

I couldn’t put the book down, I finished it in 4 days. Percival Everett takes a precise and bold shot in this attack on racism, police brutality and White Supremacy not just taking place in the Deep South but everywhere. To interrogate the incredibly heartbreaking and uncomfortable history of lynching in the United States.

“Swinging in the southern breeze 

 Strange fruit hangin’ 

 From the poplar trees 

 Pastoral scene 

 Of the gallant south 

 Them big bulging eyes 

 And the twisted mouth 

 Scent of Magnolia 

 Clean and fresh

 Then the sudden smell 

 Of burnin’ flesh” 

Strange Fruit, Nina Simone