The warm reception of her book in her native state has at times challenged the author's own tug-of-war relationship with Mississippi.Ĭritics have been eager to brush off Thomas’ book as anti-cop. “Part of me was like, wait - you didn’t see us as human,”she said, but Thomas embraced the reader’s admission as an illustration of “the power of literature” and as one step on the rung to fostering better race relations.
Thomas admits to being taken aback by the confession. “She’s slowly but surely reforming herself and someone told her she should read my book.” “As she got older she struggled with it and started to come into her own,” Thomas said. The woman wrote of being instilled with the idea that black people were inferior and of holding the beliefs herself. The writer told Thomas her father was an ardent white supremacist. Thomas recalled receiving an email from a reader who described herself as a middle-aged white woman in rural Alabama. She holds a firm belief that books can be “mirrors, windows and sliding doors.” Thomas has also heard from educators who hosted classroom book clubs and invited police officers to read the novel and participate. Thomas views her book as a starting point for dialogue.įive months after a rally of affiliated hate groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, ended in the death of a counter-protester, several high schools in the area partnered in asking students to read the book as a bid to move forward. The idea of who has a voice, how Americans should use their voices and perhaps most critically which voices should be listened to is fueling some of the most heated political conversations today. “I want them to see they have a voice and know the power of that voice.”
“I think my big goal was for kids who are like Starr to see themselves in the character and see how amazing they are,” Thomas said. It’s a coming-of-age story - complete with the after-school job at the family store, fallouts with best friends and teenage romance - that intersects with a social justice message. Released in 2017, Thomas’ novel centers on Starr, a black teenager who witnesses a police officer shooting her childhood friend.
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