Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found

by Gilbert King Narrated by Kimberly Farr

Overview

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST

"Compelling, insightful and important, Beneath a Ruthless Sun exposes the corruption of racial bigotry and animus that shadows a community, a state and a nation. A fascinating examination of an injustice story all too familiar and still largely ignored, an engaging and essential read." --Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller Devil in the Grove, the gripping true story of a small town with a big secret.

In December 1957, the wife of a Florida citrus baron is raped in her home while her husband is away. She claims a "husky Negro" did it, and the sheriff, the infamous racist Willis McCall, does not hesitate to round up a herd of suspects. But within days, McCall turns his sights on Jesse Daniels, a gentle, mentally impaired white nineteen-year-old. Soon Jesse is railroaded up to the state hospital for the insane, and locked away without trial.
But crusading journalist Mabel Norris Reese cannot stop fretting over the case and its baffling outcome. Who was protecting whom, or what? She pursues the story for years, chasing down leads, hitting dead ends, winning unlikely allies. Bit by bit, the unspeakable truths behind a conspiracy that shocked a community into silence begin to surface.

Beneath a Ruthless Sun tells a powerful, page-turning story rooted in the fears that rippled through the South as integration began to take hold, sparking a surge of virulent racism that savaged the vulnerable, debased the powerful, and roils our own times still.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Jeffrey Toobin

…Gilbert King's superb new book…amounts to a sequel of sorts to King's Devil in the Grove…The connecting thread between the two…is Sheriff Willis McCall…a figure of nearly incomprehensible evil…On the surface, King's choice of this case as an illustration of a racist system of justice might seem peculiar. After all, this is the story of a crooked Southern sheriff railroading a white man. But as the story unfolds, it exposes the sinister complexity of American racism…King tells this complex story with grace and sensitivity, and his narrative never flags. His mastery of the material is complete…King's occasional detours into such subjects as the history of the citrus industry and Dr. [Martin Luther] King's protests in St. Augustine (where he faced some of the ugliest crowds of his career) are welcome and illuminating.

Publishers Weekly - Audio

06/25/2018
Voice actor Farr offers a simple reading of King’s true crime saga set in the Jim Crow South. During the winter of 1957, Blanche Knowles, a white woman and the wife of a wealthy citrus baron in Lake County, Fla., is raped. She describes her rapist as a black man with bushy hair. Yet, despite evidence to the contrary, it is a mentally disabled white teenager, Jesse Daniels, who is convicted of the crime, and his family is ostracized by the community at the mere suggestion of having black ancestry. He spends the next 14 years committed to the state hospital for the insane at Chattahoochee. Despite an uncaring bureaucracy, crooked lawmen, and frightening harassment by the KKK, Jesse’s mother and a dedicated investigative reporter work tirelessly to prove Jesse’s innocence. Farr cleanly guides the listener through this tale of injustice and unabashed, rampant racism. Farr’s clear and steady reading keeps listeners attuned to the historical detail and plot twists that drive King’s narrative. A Riverhead hardcover. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/12/2018
The perversions of justice under Jim Crow chart a devious path in this labyrinthine true crime saga. Pulitzer-winning historian King (Devil in the Grove) explores the aftermath of the 1957 rape of a white woman named Blanche Knowles, the wife of a wealthy citrus baron in Lake County, Fla., a locale notorious for trumped-up prosecutions of black men. A dragnet led by Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall rounded up African-American suspects, but then Jesse Daniels, a mentally impaired white teenager, was accused of the crime. Despite evidence that his confession was coerced, he was committed without trial to a hospital for the criminally insane. King follows the Daniels family’s struggle to free Jesse for two decades as it played out against Florida’s intensifying civil rights movement, untangling along the way the extraordinary web of lies that racism wove around blacks and whites alike (for example, Blanche’s family dismisses a lead on a new suspect to spare her husband “the indignity of having a wife who had been violated by a black man”). At the story’s center is the decades-long reign of terror of Sheriff McCall, a Klan leader who killed prisoners, beat suspects, brutalized interracial couples, and railroaded innocent people, and was opposed only by crusading journalist Mabel Reese, who braved death threats and bombings to help Daniels. Packed with riveting characters and startling twists, King’s narrative unfolds like a Southern gothic noir probing the recesses of a poisoned society. Photos. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

Exposes the sinister complexity of American racism …King tells this … story with grace and sensitivity, and his narrative never flags. His mastery of the materials is complete.” —Jeffrey Toobin, New York Times Book Review

“Riveting...King recounts this perplexing story with compassion and a vibrant sense of time and place…[a] sobering but expertly told saga.” —Washington Post

“Chilling...Truth oftentimes beggars belief, and the 'true' in 'true crime' can be a promise that betrays as much as it entices. Not so with Gilbert King's scorching, compelling, and — unfortunately — still entirely relevant new work.”—NPR

“A gripping tale of entrenched racism and complicity… King's reporting defies cliché with depth and specificity. He holds to verifiable facts and knows how to let a story and characters evolve… [Beneath a Ruthless Sun] haunts as an uncurtained stare into history.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Remarkable… Beneath a Ruthless Sun is multiple books in one – a gripping true-crime narrative, a deeply wrenching story of American bigotry and corruption, and an inspiring tale of hero's fired by love and righteous fury… King reminds us of its not-so-distant history as a stronghold of Southern racism and bigotry, a state that produced both horrific violence and courageous protest.”—Christian Science Monitor
 
“Timely and important.”—New York Times

“Pulitzer Prize winner King returns with a new nonfiction story for those craving a Serial-esque fix… King provides a glimpse into the past that is equal parts enlightening, frustrating, and invariably un-put-downable.”  —Harper's Bazaar

“A true-crime masterwork.” —Men’s Journal

“A first-rate crime thriller, built on shocking plot twists and vivid characters … This extraordinary book’s story might have begun more than half a century ago, but it isn’t history.”  —Tampa Bay Times

“Painstakingly reported… King excels at weaving in the larger social context of the Ruthless story.”—Dallas Morning News

“Prepare to read Beneath a Ruthless Sun more than once — several stories are woven through this meticulously-researched nonfiction account of how justice cheated 19-year-old Jesse Daniels… [King’s] style is gentle but insistent. It’s laid out cleanly, with precision and without condemnation...And there lies the secret to the power behind King’s books: Truth. He speaks truth to a community that has kept its lips pursed together for the last 60 years, and we know it.” —Orlando Sentinel

“Fascinating and shocking...King’s new book… reveals how twisted the ideology of white supremacy is and how injustice to one minority can easily justify injustice to all minorities.” —Wichita Eagle
 
“A powerful page-turner.” —Garden & Gun

“A book for true-crime aficionados as well as anyone interested in criminal justice reform.. .King delves into a complicated rape case that is rife with corruption, and in doing so, he shines a light on issues of sex, race, and class.” —Bustle

“Pulitzer Prize winner Gilbert King continues his extraordinary historical autopsy of 1950s and ’60s Lake County, Florida, and its infamous racist sheriff Willis McCall… a fascinating look at the South and its people in an era many today fondly remember as when America was ‘great.’”—Florida Times-Union

“Tense and stunning...[Beneath a Ruthless Sun's] taut focus on a single case also shines a light onto larger issues of racial profiling, police corruption and the condition of Florida’s mental institutions.” —Book Page

“The perversions of justice under Jim Crow chart a devious path in this labyrinthine true crime saga… Packed with riveting characters and startling twists, King’s narrative unfolds like a Southern gothic noir probing the recesses of a poisoned society.” —Publisher's Weekly (starred)

“A spellbinding true story of racism, privilege, and official corruption...By turns sobering, frightening, and thrilling, this meticulous account of the power and tenacity of officially sanctioned racism recalls a dark era that America is still struggling to leave behind.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

 “This book is every bit as gripping as the author’s Pulitzer-winning Devil in the Grove...Gripping history, vividly told.” —Booklist (starred)

“Compelling, insightful and important, Gilbert King exposes the corruption of racial bigotry and animus that shadows a community, a state and a nation.  A fascinating examination of an injustice story all too familiar and still largely ignored, an engaging and essential read.” —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy
 
"In the tradition of Harper Lee, Gilbert King tells the story of a small southern town corrupted by racism, a perverse genteel honor, and utter disdain for poor “crackers.”  Three women stand out in this gripping tale of a falsely accused man: an unrelenting reporter, a mother, and a victim doubly victimized as a pawn of others’ ambitions.  In deftly unraveling a tragic mixture of lies, violence, and hatred, King powerfully reminds us how the unpalatable beliefs of 1957 haunt us still." —Nancy Isenberg, author of White Trash

“Gilbert King’s stunning chronicle of race, sex and power in fatal combination yields so many truly tragic turns that it’s almost uncanny when goodness endures. With breakneck drama and cold clarity, Beneath a Ruthless Sun captures the sultry particulars of a uniquely charged place and time as well as a universal truth about how difficult it is for humans in the aggregate to do the right thing.” 
—Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama—the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution


Praise for Devil in the Grove:

"Must read, cannot put down history." –The New York Times

"A taut, intensely readable narrative." –Boston Globe

"A powerful and well-told drama of Southern injustice." –The Chicago Tribune

Library Journal

11/01/2017
King follows up his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America with a narrative of sex, race, and corruption in 1957 Florida that must be read to be believed. The rape of a wealthy citrus grower's wife led to the arrest of several African Americans by the county's virulently racist sheriff, who quickly (and inexplicably) released them and turned his attention to Jesse Daniels, a sweet-natured white teenager with the mental capacity of a ten-year-old. That's when journalist Mabel Norris Reese enters the picture.

JULY 2018 - AudioFile

Narrator Kimberly Farr’s confident, conversational tone draws listeners into the tense world of Jim Crow-era Florida, making the arrogance of those in power and the pain they inflicted that much more tangible. In 1957, the wealthy white Blanche Bosanquet Knowles was raped in her home and described her assailant as a “husky Negro.” Although the notoriously racist local sheriff authorized a brutal roundup of the black community, he ultimately arrested Jessie Daniels, a 19-year-old white boy with the mental capacity of a 6-year-old. Thankfully, journalist Mabel Norris Reese railed at the injustice and sacrificed years of her life to securing justice for Daniels. Farr wisely lets King’s research and evocative writing speak for themselves in a jarring and timely history that does credit to Reese’s quest. B.E.K. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2018-02-06
A spellbinding true story of racism, privilege, and official corruption.In 1957, in the tiny central Florida town of Okahumpka, a prominent white woman was raped; she described her attacker as a young "Negro with bushy hair." Lake County sheriff and reputed KKK leader Willis McCall indiscriminately rounded up nearly two dozen young black men for interrogation, ultimately holding two incommunicado for days as prime suspects. But then McCall astonished everyone by releasing them both and charging Jesse Daniels, a poor, mentally challenged 19-year-old white youth who could not possibly have committed the crime. He colluded with a prosecutor and judge to pack Daniels off to be warehoused at the state mental hospital with neither a trial nor a legal determination of insanity. It seemed the case was closed but for the persistence of McCall's nemesis, Mabel Norris Reese, editor of a local weekly. Pulitzer Prize winner King (Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, 2012, etc.) thus launches an electrifying 20-year saga of murders, beatings, cross-burnings, bombings, fabricated evidence, and conveniently missing documents, all part of a racist reign of terror victimizing both blacks and whites and supported by an impenetrable elite of white citrus planters, cops, lawyers, politicians, and judges. The author draws on thousands of pages of unpublished documents, including court filings and testimony, hospital records, legislative materials, and personal files, to assemble this page-turner, suffused with a palpable atmosphere of dread. He clearly documents the lawless ferocity with which much of Florida resisted granting equal rights to blacks even as it marketed itself as a space-age vacation paradise. From the opening pages, King's narrative barrels forward, leaving readers wondering what it will take for justice to prevail.By turns sobering, frightening, and thrilling, this meticulous account of the power and tenacity of officially sanctioned racism recalls a dark era that America is still struggling to leave behind.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171850708
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/24/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

For Mabel Norris Reese, Wednesdays had a special routine. Wednesday was the day the Mount Dora Topic, the weekly newspaper that she and her husband, Paul, owned and ran, went to press. The alarm clock would go off at four a.m. in their house on Morningside Drive in Sylvan Shores, a small, upscale community of Mediterranean Revival and ranch homes along the west side of Lake Gertrude. Within the hour, Mabel would be barreling along the few miles to the Topic’s office in downtown Mount Dora. There she’d go over that week’s edition, making corrections in the lead galleys, before heading back home to cook break­fast for Paul and their daughter, Patricia.

Once Patricia had been seen off to school, Mabel would return to the office with Paul for the long hours ahead. Side by side, they would dress up the pages of the newspaper together. Harold Rawley, who ran the Linotype machine, would set the pages one metal line of type at a time, to be inked and printed later that night on the Old Topper, the Topic’s big press. Mrs. Downs, a seventy- two- year- old widow who had taken over the print work from her late husband, would stand in the hot air atop the press platform, feeding sheets of paper into the jaws of the loud, cranky machine that birthed the “inky babies,” as Mabel called them.

Sturdy and still stylish at forty- three, Mabel favored printed cotton shirtwaist dresses, which she sometimes wore with pearls, and with her bebopper’s cat- eye glasses she was easily spotted out and about in old- fashioned Mount Dora. In addition to covering meetings, writing stories and weekly editori­als, taking photographs, and selling ads, Mabel worked the arm on the wing mailer and slapped name stickers on each freshly printed copy un­til, as she liked to tell Patricia, “the pile on the left goes way down and the pile on the right climbs to a mountain.” (Patricia herself attended to the wrapping and stamping of the papers, and Paul and his brother deliv­ered the lot of them to the post office.)

Mabel had performed this strenuous Wednesday routine more than five hundred times in the ten years that she and Paul had been publishing the Topic. She’d missed only two issues— once when she’d been briefly hospitalized and once the previous summer, when she’d traveled to Illi­nois to accept a journalism award. But when, in the wee hours of December 18, rumors of a white woman’s rape began to circulate, Mabel deviated from her normal Wednesday routine and instead followed her reportorial instincts. They took her to Okahumpka, where she’d heard that residents of North Quarters were being harassed. There she found that Sheriff McCall’s deputies were not only terrorizing the residents but also arresting on suspicion virtually every young black male in the neighborhood. One of them described how Negro suspects were being rounded up and taken in by up to five carloads at a time. “They woke me up at two a.m. and told me I would get the electric chair if they didn’t kill me beforehand,” he said. Another Okahumpka resident told Mabel, “They took in thirty- three of our menfolk. Not just men, but boys, too . . . A body couldn’t do anything but wait for ’em to come pounding on the door.”

By daybreak, Mabel had pages of notes to transcribe, and they reverberated with fear— fear that, once again, the Lake County Sheriff’s Department was indiscriminately rounding up young black men, and that, once again, violence would come of it. “A restlessness began to run through the quarters,” Mabel wrote, “and it mounted steadily.”

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Beneath a Ruthless Sun"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Gilbert King.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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