I actually came across this book by Michael McDowell last year when the audio version was on sale on Audible. I thought the premise sounded interesting, so I bought it, but didn’t have a chance to listen to it until this year.
It’s fine.
It’s a bit of a slow burn for my taste, but it definitely delivers on its promise of a revenge narrative.
The book takes place in Gilded Age NYC and is about two families: the respectable, well-to-do Stallworths, and the Shanks, who make their living conducting all sorts of illegal activities, from abortions and forgery, to buying and selling stolen items.
The matriarch of the family, Lena, is known as “Black Lena”, and is the recognized queen of the “Black Triangle”, the poverty- and crime-stricken area of Manhattan.
The patriarch of the Stallworth family is James Stallworth, a Democrat judge planning to get more Demoncrats elected in a city dominated by Republicans.
Many years ago, Judge Stallworth sentenced Lena’s husband to death and Lena to jail for a number of years for crimes they committed. He also ordered Lena’s two daughters be taken from her.
Lena is a German immigrant who doesn’t understand much English, so the proceedings go over her head. Her attorney translates for her and she tells a friend to take the girls out of the courtroom before an officer can grab them, and to take care of them until she gets out of jail and can come back for them.
She manages to remember the name and face of the judge.
Fast forward several years and Lena has been out of jail for a while, collected and finished raising her two daughters, one of whom now has a creepy son and daughter of her own.
Judge Stallworth’s family has likewise grown and he is still plotting strategies for electing Democrats in New York. His strategy involves cracking down on the Black Triangle, starting with finding the murderer of an attorney who was found dead, having been stripped of his valuables.
It turns out Lena’s brother was the killer and his wife an accomplice, so Judge Stallworth sentences them both to death.
People (including Judge Stallworth’s grandson) start patrolling the Black Triangle, supposedly on the lookout for crime. Judge Stallworth’s grandson, Benjamin, arms himself with a pistol. When a fight breaks out at Lena’s place, Benjamin fires the pistol, missing his target and instead hitting Lena’s daughter in the neck, thereby killing her.
Lena vows vengeance, saying three of hers are dead, so three Stallworths will die.
She takes her time getting her revenge. She has to flee the city for a while, due to the fact that her grandchildren killed a policeman in the altercation that also killed Lena’s daughter. When they return, it’s to a friend’s house and in disguise.
One Sunday, eight black envelopes are delivered to Judge Stallworth’s house, each one bearing the name of a member of the Stallworth family. Each contains a notice of their death.
The Stallworths dismiss it as a prank … but then the judge’s son-in-law is attacked in his office, barely managing to escape with his life. Then his two youngest grandchildren go missing, and suddenly they start remembering Black Lena’s promise.
I did enjoy watching a woman who had to work for everything she has get revenge on this privileged family. Don’t worry, the children are fine. You could even say they get to live happily ever after.
A lot of the book was a commentary on capitalism, classism, and income inequality. McDowell spends a fair amount of time describing the extreme poverty, disease, and death suffered by many of the inhabitants of the Black Triangle, as well as the snobbishness of the Stallworths. The book could have been a lot shorter without all that, but it’s not a very long book as it is, and it’s a message with which I can get on board.