Decent People

A Novel

De'Shawn Charles Winslow

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Year: 2023
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781635575330
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

The "propulsive" ( L.A. Times), "intriguing" (Wall Street Journal) story of a black community reeling from a triple homicide, and the dark secrets the killings reveal.

In the still-segregated town of West Mills, North Carolina, in 1976, Marian, Marva, and Lazarus Harmon—three enigmatic siblings—are found shot to death in their home. The people of West Mills—on both sides of the canal that serves as the town's color line—are in a frenzy of finger-pointing, gossip, and wonder. The crime is the first reported murder in the area in decades, but the white authorities don't seem to have any interest in solving the case.
Fortunately, one person is determined to do more than talk. Miss Josephine Wright has just moved back to West Mills from New York City to retire and marry a childhood sweetheart, Olympus "Lymp" Seymore. When she discovers that the murder victims are Lymp's half-siblings, and that Lymp is one of West Mills's leading suspects, she sets out to prove his innocence. But as Jo interviews those closest to the Harmons' deaths, she discovers more secrets than she'd ever imagined, and a host of cover-ups—ranging from medical misuse to illicit affairs—that could upend the reputations of many.
Propulsive and thought-provoking, Decent People is a brilliant novel about shame, race, money, homophobia, and the reckoning required to heal a fractured community.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for Decent People
• Half Title
• Dedication
• By the Same Author
• Title Page
• Contents
• Chapter One: Jo
• Chapter Two: Jo
• Chapter Three: Jo
• Chapter Four: Jo
• Chapter Five: Eunice
• Chapter Six: Eunice
• Chapter Seven: Eunice
• Chapter Eight: Eunice
• Chapter Nine: Jo
• Chapter Ten: Savannah
• Chapter Eleven: Savannah
• Chapter Twelve: Savannah
• Chapter Thirteen: Savannah
• Chapter Fourteen: Savannah
• Chapter Fifteen: Jo
• Chapter Sixteen: Ted
• Chapter Seventeen: Ted
• Chapter Eighteen: Ted
• Chapter Nineteen: Ted
• Chapter Twenty: Jo
• Chapter Twenty-One: Jo
• Chapter Twenty-Two: Eunice
• Chapter Twenty-Three: Savannah
• Chapter Twenty-Four: Jo
• Acknowledgments
• A Note on the Author
• Also Available from De’Shawn Winslow
• Copyright