Under the Tulip Tree

Set in Depression-era Nashville, the story follows two women whose lives become intertwined through storytelling. The narrative alternates between the 1936 experiences of Lorena Ann "Rena" Leland, a young white woman, and the recounted life of Frances "Frankie" Washington, a 101-year-old Black woman who was formerly enslaved.

The novel opens on October 29, 1929, Rena's sixteenth birthday. Her father, a bank president, is absent from breakfast despite promising to spend the day with the family. That afternoon, the stock market crashes, and Rena's sister, Mary, privately reveals that their father's bank is in serious financial trouble. No one attends Rena's birthday party. Over the next seven years, the family falls apart: Rena's father develops an alcohol addiction and becomes a recluse, while her mother takes a job at a sewing shop to keep food on the table. The family survives largely because Rena's Grandma Lorena takes over their mortgage payments.

By September 1936, Rena is twenty-two and unemployed. Her former editor, George Armistead, gives her a letter about the Federal Writers' Project (FWP), a government program under Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) that hires writers to interview formerly enslaved people and record their oral histories. The job pays twenty dollars a week. Rena hesitates because her own ancestors enslaved people, but Grandma Lorena encourages her to take the position.

Rena begins work alongside Alden Norwood, a fellow FWP writer from Chicago who drives her to interviews. The two initially clash but develop a friendship that deepens into romantic attraction. Rena's first interviewee is Frankie Washington, who lives in a small yellow house in Hell's Half Acre, a run-down neighborhood near the state capitol. Frankie greets Rena with a cryptic statement: The Lord told her she could not "go home" until Rena came.

Frankie begins recounting her life. Born in 1835 on the Hall plantation in Tennessee, she was the daughter of an enslaved kitchen worker named Lucindia. At age six, Frankie becomes the companion of Charlotte Hall, the plantation owners' eight-year-old daughter. During her first visit to the main house, Frankie wets the parlor carpet after being denied use of the outhouse, and the plantation mistress, Sadie Hall, strikes her with a fireplace poker, permanently deforming her hand. Despite the beating, Frankie bonds with Charlotte, who reads to her from picture books and sparks her longing to learn to read. When Frankie secretly takes one of Charlotte's books, Sadie orders her sold. Seven-year-old Frankie is dragged away screaming, and she never sees her mother again.

Sold multiple times, Frankie becomes consumed by hatred. She falls in love with a man named Moss, but he is shot and killed when they attempt to escape together. Eventually she is auctioned in Nashville, where a grocer named Mr. Waters buys her. She stays with him until Union forces occupy the city in February 1862, when she is taken to a contraband camp, a settlement for formerly enslaved people south of Nashville.

At the camp, a Quaker woman named Illa Crandle arrives from Philadelphia with Sam, a free Black man who escaped slavery ten years earlier. Illa nurses Frankie back to health after she is beaten and robbed, and secures her a paying job as laundress for Union officers. Sam shows persistent, respectful interest in Frankie, declaring that God told him she will be his wife. Frankie resists, afraid that loving anyone will lead to more loss. On Christmas Day, Sam gives her a small Book of Psalms. Over the following months, Illa teaches Frankie to read. When Frankie reaches the Twenty-third Psalm, she experiences a spiritual awakening and makes peace with God. She and Sam grow close.

As Rena types up Frankie's story, she experiences a profound shift in her understanding of slavery. Her parents disapprove of the work, but Grandma Lorena urges Rena not to let anyone keep her from doing what she is called to do.

In November 1864, the Confederate Army marches toward Nashville, and the Battle of Nashville erupts in December. Frankie volunteers at a hospital for wounded soldiers, reading from the Psalms to comfort the dying. Sam is badly wounded rescuing a soldier from the battlefield. Frankie rushes to his side, and when he awakens, she declares she will hold him to his promise of marriage.

As Sam recovers, he insists Frankie go work in the prison hospital caring for wounded Confederate soldiers. She refuses, arguing these men fought to keep her enslaved. Sam asks her to read Luke 6:27 aloud: "Love your enemies." After encountering a young white woman weeping over her Confederate husband's death, Frankie agrees to go. At the prison hospital, a one-armed lieutenant watches her closely and grabs her arm, asking who crippled her hand. Frankie realizes the lieutenant is Burton Hall, the boy who watched his mother beat her decades earlier. She flees in shock.

After a period of anguish, Frankie returns and confronts Burton. He tells her that after she was sold, Charlotte had nightmares, his father vowed never to sell another child, and Frankie's mother eventually died of illness. When soldiers arrive to transfer Burton to a prison camp, Frankie tells him she forgives him, releasing the hatred she has carried for a lifetime. As he is marched away, Burton tells her Charlotte never forgot her.

In 1936, the name "Hall" nags at Rena. Grandma Lorena reveals that her own grandmother's maiden name was Hall and that her grandmother had a younger sister named Charlotte. A daguerreotype labeled "Sadie Pope Hall and children" confirms that Sadie, Burton, and Charlotte are Rena's direct ancestors. Devastated, Rena considers never seeing Frankie again, but Grandma insists she must tell the truth.

Rena goes to Frankie's house and shows her the photographs. Rena falls to her knees, apologizing for what her ancestor did, and both women weep. Frankie tells Rena that when she forgave Burton, the hatred for Sadie left her too. She assures Rena she could never hate her family and says she believes God brought Rena to her door on purpose. Frankie finishes her story: She married Sam after the war. Their son Caleb attended Fisk University and settled in Atlanta. Jael, Caleb's granddaughter, cares for Frankie. Sam died five years before the interview.

Frankie dies peacefully in her sleep the night after Rena's confession. When Jael finds her, Frankie's deformed hand has been miraculously healed, her fingers straight and normal. At the gathering before the funeral, Jael gives Rena Sam's Book of Psalms, which Frankie left for her with a note saying the book is worth more than silver or gold. Frankie is buried near the ruins of Fort Negley, a Union fortification overlooking the city, in the shade of a tulip tree, beside Sam.

When the FWP director insists on heavily editing Frankie's narrative, Rena refuses to alter her words. Inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe, she writes an article titled "Their Stories, Their Words" and brings it to Mr. Armistead, who sends it to the editor of Collier's, a major national magazine. The novel concludes at Thanksgiving. Rena and Alden are dating, her father has stayed sober since Mary and her children moved home, and Rena is writing articles for Collier's. Her mother tells Rena she is proud of her, a first. At the family table, Rena silently gives thanks for Frankie, whose courage and forgiveness taught her what it means to survive.