Red Clay – Charles B. Fancher
If you could rate a book solely on its premise, “Red Clay” would be a five-star read. Unfortunately, that’s the strongest part of the novel.
In 1943, an elderly white woman arrives at the home of a Black man’s family in rural Alabama and calmly announces that her family once owned theirs. From there, the story jumps back to 1864 and settles into an upstairs/downstairs narrative focused on both the white and Black Parkers, whose lives remain entangled even as the Civil War draws to a close.
For a while, this really works. Charles B. Fancher is much stronger at character than plot, and the early sections play to that strength. Felix, his parents Plessant and Elmira, and their complicated proximity to the white Parkers are drawn with real tension, especially since Felix is the keeper of secrets that could unravel the carefully curated life of the plantation owners.
The novel is clear-eyed about the brutality of slavery without flattening its characters into symbols, and the looming collapse of the Confederacy hangs over everything without overwhelming the story. The postwar chapters, particularly those dealing with the realities of “freedom” — sharecropping, land theft and the resurgence of white supremacist power — are among the book’s strongest.
Then it falls apart rather spectacularly.
The final third becomes a jumble of plot points and loosely connected storylines, and the dialogue suddenly turns clunky and overly on-the-nose. It honestly feels like a different book. Once Fancher shifts away from character-driven storytelling and tries to escalate the action, the writing starts to feel forced and, at times, surprisingly trite.
That’s what makes the ending so frustrating. Earlier on, I felt like I had stumbled onto a hidden gem, one that was sharp in its observations about Reconstruction without being preachy or sentimental. Instead, the novel veers into revenge-thriller territory and loses much of its credibility. Had this been published after Percival Everett’s “James,” I might have assumed Fancher was trying to chase the same idea.
The audiobook doesn’t help. Dion Graham handles the male characters well, but his performances of women are exaggerated to the point of distraction, leaning into stereotypes that pulled me out of the story more than once. It is an early contender for my worst audiobook narration of the year.
The author’s note reveals that the novel was inspired by Fancher’s great-great-grandfather, which adds weight to what he’s attempting here and makes the disappointment in what was delivered sharper.
Thank you to Libro.fm, Blackstone Publishing and the author for a free copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.
Rating (story): 3/5 stars
Rating (narration): 2/5 stars
Format: Audiobook (personal library)
Dates read: February 2 – February 8, 2026
Multi-tasking: Safe to half-listen, particularly in the back half when the book falls apart. I’d honestly recommend walking away at that point, especially if you’re doing the audiobook.
