The Secret of Magic by Deborah Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Secret of Magic is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Inspired by a true case of a WWII serviceman who was singled out and arrested on a bus in the North Carolina, then brutally abused while in custody for insisting on his most basic civil rights, Deborah Johnson weaves a magical realist tale combined with realities of the the early Civil Rights era. Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund figure in the novel, and 1940’s Columbus, MS, provides much of the backdrop for the fictional town of Rever). Invented characters and events, as well as a novel within the novel, provide Johnson the magical elements needed to weave an important statement on race relations in the past, present, and future South.
Kendall Dunkelberg 