I was reading a series of books that took place in a small town outside Atlanta Georgia. The main characters were witches who were either of Irish descent or who were Irish immigrants.
I had noticed that none of the people in this small Georgia town were described as African-American. Now, none of the supporting characters were given much physical description so I suppose that some of them could have been but it wasn’t explicitly stated. That was a bit odd for that area of the country.
Then, a few books in, there was a plantation outside the town. Yep, a plantation. This series is set in current times. The plantation is being used as a museum and a nice place to go for a day. Okay. No mention was made of the history of slavery inherent in a Georgia plantation. At this point, I’m starting to side-eye this book. I’m thinking that this author is working hard to avoid talking about the rough parts of reality in Georgia.
But it gets weirder. Turns out that in flashbacks to the 1800s this plantation was run by a few indentured servants from Ireland.
Yes. A whole plantation. In Georgia. Was run by a couple of Irish indentured servants in the early 1800s.
At this point I was wondering what was up with this author. Was this just a crazy white lady who needed to get her Irish witches to Georgia and didn’t want to deal with messy racial politics? I was reading these books on my iPad so hadn’t looked at the author blurb. I flipped to that.
Turns out that the author is in fact a white lady but she is from Western Australia.
So, good for me for accidentally hitting my goal of reading authors from the Southern Hemisphere but now I didn’t know for sure if she was just clueless about the area she was setting her stories in or if she was willfully changing history.
It also started me thinking about books I’ve read from American and British authors that are set in other countries around the world. I’ve often wondered if I’ve been too picky by wanting to read stories written by authors from the countries that they are set it or who I know have well researched the area. Now I wonder what books I’ve read set in South America or Africa or Europe that locals would shake their heads at.
Man, I typed a whole comment and lost it. But now I want to more about this weird decision! I am with Ellie- why didn’t she just put it in Australia!? Makes a million times more sense, tbh. I agree with you though about authors doing research- when I know that something is wrong, it takes me out of a story immediately!
I’m guessing at which series you’re talking about based on your wrap-up post for this month, haha. Perhaps the most generous interpretation is that the author read some “spooky” Southern Gothic and wanted to set her own story in the same sort of place, but somehow never picked up on the racial tension inherent in the genre? IDK.
I also often wonder about the accuracy of the settings in books by non-local authors that I’m reading are. (Awkwardly phrased, but I think you know what I mean.) It’s often pretty obvious when books set in my home state are written by people who’ve never been here or done any reading about it.
“a nice place to go for a day” yikes… that seems really tonedeaf of that author.
That’s very odd that she chose to set her book there if the history and culture isn’t part of the book. Like she could have set it in Australia and have had Irish immigrants running a farm just as easily.