Whistling Past the Graveyard

Whistling Past the Graveyard (2013) is a coming-of-age novel by author Susan Crandall. The title comes from the idiom meaning to remain optimistic through depressing circumstances. The author chose the title because it reflected the protagonist’s character very well.

The themes of Whistling Past the Graveyard include the true meaning of family, the impact of racial segregation, and the development of self-esteem.

The novel opens to the precocious protagonist, nine-year-old Starla Jane Claudelle, questioning whether her paternal grandmother (Mammie) truly prays for her or for herself every day. It’s 1963 and she lives with her family, or what's left of her family, in Cayuga Springs, Mississippi.



Her dad, Porter, works long hours for an oil company, and her mother, Lulu, abandoned her at the age of three to chase her dreams of stardom as a country singer. Her parents married when they were just teenagers.

Starla's in the third grade and admits that she can be a lot to handle. She asks a lot of questions, and if something is boring her, it’s difficult for her to hide her impatience. Often, her “sassy” mouth gets her into trouble with adults. Her red hair makes her a person difficult to ignore, while her various antics cause Mammie to ground her almost every other week.

Starla misses Lulu. She downplays all of the negative stories she’s heard about her mother and imagines her to be a stellar mother who’s currently working hard so that she can be reunited with Starla. She also imagines that living with Lulu would be a lot more fun to live with than Mammie.



One fourth of July, Starla ventures out to see a parade. This goes against Mammie’s rule that she must stay inside, but Starla is convinced that if no one sees her, she’s not really breaking a rule, and what Mammie doesn’t know can’t kill her. But then she’s spotted by a family friend who’s sure to tell Mammie that Starla was out on the town.

Starla freaks out. She’s sure that she’s crossed some major line. Mammie has been saying she’ll send her to a boarding school where the teachers are very strict, and now Starla believes that Mammie may make good on her threats.

Rather than face reform school, Starla elects to run away. Most nine-year-olds don’t follow through on their dreams of running away, but Starla is uncommonly spunky and determined. Unfortunately, she’s also impulsive and not much of a planner. As she runs away from town, she has no food or water and quickly becomes dangerously dehydrated.



While walking on the side of a road, Starla meets Eula, who offers her water as well as a ride to wherever she’s heading. Eula is an African-American woman in her early 30s who has adopted a white infant apparently discarded outside of a church. Eula calls the baby James. Not only does this cause consternation across town, but it also infuriates her husband, Wallace, whose dependent on alcohol and often hits Eula when he’s in a rage. Wallace becomes irate when he sees that Eula brings two white children home.

They all get into a huge fight and Wallace threatens to kill Eula. Starla intercedes, and Wallace chokes her. He comes close to killing her but Eula and Starla act in self-defense and kill him. Now with a murder on their hands, Eula and Starla flee town.

As the two journey through the American south, Starla becomes aware of the many injustices Eula, as a black woman, experiences every day.



Eula has her eyes set on Nashville, Tennessee. Starla decides this is as good a place to run away as anywhere, especially if she can find her mother. She easily imagines that her mother did find success in Nashville, and that she will welcome her with open arms upon arrival.

Instead, when Starla’s mother, Lulu, sees her child, she is outraged. She has moved on from Starla and has remarried. She’s also an alcoholic who doesn’t want to be inconvenienced by Starla’s affections. Starla, who at this point has been missing for two weeks, caused a lot of unnecessary stress for Lulu—Lulu tells her. Lulu calls Porter to come get her.

Hurt by Lulu’s rejection, Starla is more grateful than ever before for the love of her father. She tells her father everything that has transpired in the last two weeks, including the inadvertent murder of Wallace. Starla realizes at one point that Eula is wanted for kidnapping a child.



Back in town, it’s revealed that James is the son of someone close to the Claudelle family. Eula protected him when no one else would. He’s placed up for adoption.

It’s announced that Eula won’t be going to jail for Wallace’s death because she and Starla were acting in self-defense. The police officer betrays some strong racial views when he says it’s fine that Wallace is dead as he doesn’t like dealing with black men anyway.

Starla’s dad rents space in the giant house of Mrs. White, an elderly widow. Surprisingly, she bonds quickly with Eula, whom she hires as a maid, as well as Starla, whose willfulness reminds her of herself when she was a nine-year-old. As the novel closes, the new “family” have a Thanksgiving dinner.