Light in August

Years pass. Joe adapts to his life with Mr. and Mrs. McEachern. Mr. McEachern consistently ridicules Joe’s work around the house. He regularly beats Joe, whipping his buttocks, and prays for their sins to be forgiven. Mrs. McEachern treats her adopted son with kindness, sneaking Joe extra food when she can. Her kindness irritates Joe. She is creating a secret he never asked for. Still, Joe eats whatever food Mrs. McEachern secretly brings him, but it doesn’t improve his self-worth: “and above the outraged food kneeling, with his hands ate, like a savage, like a dog” (155).

At 14, Joe and other teenagers in the neighborhood arrange to have sex with a Black girl in a shed. When it’s Joe’s turn, he stumbles around in the dark of the unlit shed. He smells the girl, and she tries to speak to him, but he attacks her. She flees, and Joe fights with the other boys. After the scuffle, Joe goes home and refuses to tell Mr. McEachern what happened. Joe decides one day he’ll flee: “He felt like an eagle: hard, sufficient, potent, remorseless, strong. But that passed, though he did not then know that, like the eagle, his own flesh as well as all space was still a cage” (160).

Mr. McEachern gifts Joe with a cow for working hard. Soon after, Mr. McEachern finds a suit hidden in the barn and believes Joe bought it to go be sinful in town. Joe sells his cow, which Mr. McEachern doesn’t object to, but when Joe won’t say how much he sold the cow for or where he’s keeping the money, Mr. McEachern strikes him. For the first time, Joe tells Mr. McEachern to stop. That night, Mrs. McEachern claims she bought the suit for Joe. Mr. McEachern screams at her and commands his wife to kneel before God and repent. Alone in his room, Joe mulls over Mrs. McEachern’s kindness toward him. He considers telling her he’s part Black. Ultimately, her demeanor angers him, and he doesn’t tell her. He can handle the cruelty of men, but the kindness of women leaves him feeling vulnerable and exposed. 

Joe turns 17. Mr. McEachern takes him into town to run errands, and they have lunch at a cheap diner. Many men sit in the diner who don’t look like farmers or townsfolk. Mr. McEachern demands Joe never go to the diner without him, but Joe becomes infatuated with a petite waitress there, Bobbie. He watches Bobbie, tantalized and glad he didn’t lose his virginity when he was 14 in the shed: “That already there is something for love to feed upon: that sleeping I know now why I struck refraining that negro girl three years ago and that she must know it too and be proud too, with waiting and pride” (177). Joe disobeys Mr. McEachern and returns to the restaurant by himself. He orders coffee and pie from Bobbie but is embarrassed when he realizes he doesn’t have enough money. He comes back another day to give Bobbie more money, but she isn’t there, and the men in the restaurant laugh at him. Joe runs into Bobbie on the street and explains what he tried to do. They officially meet, and he gives his name as Joe Christmas, not Joe McEachern.

The next week, Joe and Bobbie meet at night outside her house, which is owned by Max and Mame, the owners of the restaurant. Joe wonders if they’ll have sex, worried he won’t know what to do because he’s a virgin. Bobbie implies she’s on her period, but Joe is too naïve to pick up on her insinuations. Bobbie realizes Joe’s innocence and tries to explain menstruation to him. He takes off running, embarrassed. To Bobbie’s surprise, Joe returns a week later. This time, he assertively leads her into the woods near her house. Joe continues visiting Bobbie and steals money from Mrs. McEachern to buy Bobbie gifts and pay her for sex.

Lying in bed with Bobbie, Joe tells her he’s biracial: “‘I think I got some n***** blood in me.’ His eyes were closed, his hands slow and unceasing. ‘I don’t know. I believe I have’” (195). Bobbie is taken aback but doesn’t fully believe him. Joe realizes Max and Mame are using the house as a brothel, with many of the waitresses, including Bobbie, performing sex work there. Joe hits Bobbie out of jealousy, but they continue seeing each other. 

Mr. McEachern lays in bed, concerned, convinced Joe is sinning. He moves to his window and witnesses Joe descend from his window with a rope and take off into the night. Unsurprised but angry, Mr. McEachern saddles a horse and rides off after Joe. He tracks Joe to a dance in the countryside and witnesses him dancing with Bobbie. Mr. McEachern erupts, calls Bobbie a harlot, and moves in to hit Joe. He strikes but misses. Joe retaliates by shattering a chair across his adoptive father’s head: “McEachern lay on his back. He looked quite peaceful now” (204). Bobbie yells at Joe and smacks him. Joe flees, riding Mr. McEachern’s horse back home.

Joe enters his house, jubilant, and finds Mrs. McEachern awake. He tells her Mr. McEachern is at a dance. He then takes the rest of Mrs. McEachern’s saved money. Mrs. McEachern is quiet and timid, and Joe coldly states, “I didn’t ask you for it […] Remember that. I didn’t ask, because I was afraid you would give it to me” (209). He leaves and rides the horse toward Bobbie’s house. The horse gets exhausted along the way and stops. Joe beats the horse then runs the rest of the way to Bobbie’s.  

Max lets Joe in. There are several strangers Joe has never seen before. Bobbie is packing her belongings. The household asks Joe if he killed Mr. McEachern. Joe isn’t sure. They imagine the police will be there soon to look for him. Joe shows Bobbie the money he took and hopes they can get married. Bobbie refuses and berates Joe for the trouble at the dance and for being part Black. The strangers beat Joe. They want to see him bleed, claiming if he bleeds black blood, that proves he’s Black. They hit him several times, and Joe collapses onto the floor. 

The group chatters while Joe remains semi-conscious on the ground. They debate whether to take his money. One of them, a woman, stops the others and leaves another dollar for Joe instead of taking anything from him. Everyone leaves, except Joe, who remains wounded on the floor. He stumbles to his feet and drinks some whiskey he finds. Then he takes off into the night, into anonymous streets and a vagabond life.

Over 15 years, Joe travels. He goes to Oklahoma, Missouri, Mexico, Chicago, Detroit, then to Mississippi. He performs a variety of odd jobs: “he was in turn laborer, miner, prospector, gambling tout; he enlisted in the army, served four months and deserted and was never caught” (224). In various regions he’s treated differently because of his racial ambiguity. In the South, he gets out of paying White sex workers by saying he’s Black; they scream and tell him to leave without having to pay. In the North, the women don’t mind, and he responds violently toward them. Sometimes he lives in Black communities, rejecting his Whiteness, and other times the opposite: “Sometimes he would remember how he had once tricked or teased white men into calling him a negro in order to fight them, to beat them or be beaten; now he fought the negro who called him white” (225). He lives this way into his thirties.

Joe arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi, on a freight train. At the edge of town, he notices an isolated house. He asks around town about it. The house belongs to Joanna Burden, a middle-aged woman who lives alone and that everyone else ignores. He waits until nightfall, hiding in the fields, and sneaks into the house through an open window. He finds the kitchen and starts eating the meal Joanna prepared earlier. He sees approaching candlelight but doesn’t flee; he’ll knowingly allow himself to be caught. Sure enough, Joanna finds him. She reacts nonchalantly and allows Joe to keep eating.