Gone Crazy in Alabama

The third and final book in Rita Williams-Garcia's Gaither sisters trilogy, following One Crazy Summer and P.S. Be Eleven, is set in the summer of 1969. Twelve-year-old Delphine Gaither narrates the story of her family's trip from Brooklyn, New York, to rural Alabama, where long-buried family secrets and a natural disaster test the bonds holding her family together.

Delphine prepares for a Greyhound bus trip south with her younger sisters, Vonetta (ten) and Fern (eight). Their stepmother, Mrs. Marva Hendrix, has been sick, and though Pa attributes it to a flu, Delphine suspects she is pregnant. The sisters quarrel over a watch that a girl from Vonetta's school kept and never returned. Delphine also worries about recurring dreams of people leaving, rooted in their mother Cecile's abandonment when the girls were very young and Uncle Darnell's departure after returning from Vietnam with a drug addiction.

Pa drives the girls to Newark to catch the bus, warning them to avoid attention as three Black girls traveling alone and to abandon any Black Panther slogans once they cross into the South. In Atlanta, Uncle Darnell picks them up. Delphine runs to hug him, having forgiven his past theft of their concert money, but Vonetta punches him in the gut and declares she hates him.

They arrive at the property of Ma Charles, their eighty-two-year-old great-grandmother, near Prattville in Autauga County. Big Ma, the girls' grandmother, fusses over the attention of the widowed neighbor, Mr. Lucas. Ma Charles hints Big Ma should marry Mr. Lucas, but Big Ma insists she needs only one husband, her late Grandpa Louis.

Delphine meets her cousin JimmyTrotter, the fifteen-year-old great-grandson of Miss Trotter. He reveals a long-running feud between Ma Charles and Miss Trotter, who are half sisters and have not spoken directly in years, communicating only through JimmyTrotter across the creek dividing their properties. JimmyTrotter milks Sophie, a dairy cow, twice daily and dreams of attending flight school but cannot leave his obligations.

Delphine refuses to iron Ma Charles's white cotton bedsheets, a chore Big Ma has been saving for her. Influenced by her experiences with the Black Panthers, Delphine tells Big Ma she does not iron sheets. Big Ma is furious and sends the sisters away. With nowhere else to go, they cross the creek to visit Miss Trotter.

Vonetta becomes the theatrical messenger between the feuding half sisters, performing each one's words for the other. Miss Trotter tells the story of Augustus, their earliest known ancestor, a runaway enslaved boy taken in by a Creek Indian family, emphasizing the family's Indigenous heritage. Ma Charles counters that Augustus's Creek in-laws eventually sold him and his darker-skinned children back into slavery. Their father, Slim Jim Trotter, married two women: Miss Trotter's mother legally at the courthouse and Ma Charles's mother in the church. Each claims to be his true daughter.

Fern grows attached to the chickens and tries to save them from slaughter, inspired by Charlotte's Web. Big Ma kills a hen in front of Fern and cooks it for supper. During a separate argument, Delphine accidentally reveals Mrs.'s pregnancy, and Vonetta taunts Fern about no longer being the baby.

JimmyTrotter takes the sisters into town, where they encounter Sheriff Charles, a white lawman who shares the Charles surname. JimmyTrotter reveals that the sheriff descends from the white family that once enslaved Ma Charles's husband Henry's ancestors. The family gathers to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. Mr. Lucas reaches for Big Ma's hand, and she does not pull away. That night, the Ku Klux Klan rides past carrying torches, and Ma Charles confirms that the white Charleses, including the sheriff, are Klan members.

Sophie's milk dries up, and Ma Charles accuses Miss Trotter of cursing the cow. Each sister believes the other hexed her line: Ma Charles points to Big Ma's difficulty having children, while Miss Trotter blames Ma Charles because all of Miss Trotter's family except JimmyTrotter died in a car accident three years earlier. Delphine and Vonetta quarrel bitterly, and Vonetta refuses to huddle with her sisters during an electrical storm.

By morning, Vonetta is gone. She has taken JimmyTrotter's bicycle and ridden toward town to buy milk. A tornado approaches from the same direction. Mr. Lucas orders everyone into the root cellar with minutes to spare. The tornado strikes while Fern screams for Vonetta. They emerge to find Ma Charles's house standing but the outbuildings destroyed and a pine tree through Mr. Lucas's roof.

Ma Charles instructs Delphine to call Pa. When he hears Vonetta is lost, he lets out a terrible sound. Mrs. takes the phone and promises they will come. Ma Charles then insists Delphine call Cecile. After reaching Mean Lady Ming, a woman at a Chinese takeout near Cecile in Oakland who agrees to relay the message, Delphine waits. When Cecile calls back and hears Vonetta is lost, she hangs up without a word.

Miss Trotter, JimmyTrotter, and their cows emerge from the pines, their house destroyed. Ma Charles makes her way toward them, and the two sisters call out "Sister," "Sister," reuniting for the first time in years. Sheriff Charles arrives with dogs and finds the bicycle in a tree, broken to pieces, but no Vonetta.

Cecile arrives on foot that night, having flown from Oakland to Montgomery and walked several miles from the junction. She hugs Uncle Darnell fiercely, telling him, "I never meant to leave you," words she has never spoken to her daughters. Delphine watches, feeling excluded. Big Ma orders Cecile to leave, but Cecile refuses to go until Vonetta is found.

Pa and Mrs. arrive the next afternoon, Mrs.'s pregnancy now visible. That night, Cecile sleeps between Fern and Delphine, cradling Fern while Delphine falls asleep holding one of Cecile's braids. The next morning, Sheriff Charles returns to report that Samaritans found Vonetta and brought her to a hospital. She has a broken arm, a scratched face, and a sore backside, but she is alive. The family erupts in hallelujahs.

At the hospital, Vonetta is left on a gurney for nearly a day before anyone examines her. She returns quiet and subdued, and when Uncle Darnell calls her "Net-Net," she bursts into tears, ending their estrangement. While waiting for Vonetta, Delphine irons all the white cotton sheets she had refused to press, smoothing every wrinkle as an act of penance.

Cecile slips away in the night, telling Delphine she cannot stay. She hugs her daughter and kisses the top of her head. Uncle Darnell drives her to the airport. The sisters cry, but briefly.

Ma Charles orchestrates Big Ma's marriage to Mr. Lucas, announcing that only a mother or husband can give her daughter orders. Pastor Curtis marries them in the living room, with Ma Charles shaking her tambourine and Miss Trotter approving.

Before the family returns to Brooklyn, Uncle Darnell gives Delphine a letter from Cecile. She reads it to her sisters. Cecile writes that a woman who kicks up dust to make her path can walk through a storm and carries all her children with her. She adds: "Things do fall apart," and "Walk on, daughter. Walk on." Back in Brooklyn, the Wildcat, the family's car, breaks down permanently. Vonetta, her cast still on, announces it is time to get her watch back. She asks Delphine and Fern to come but insists on knocking on the door herself. Delphine walks behind her sisters, keeping her distance but remaining present. Being there is all her sisters need to know.