Gerald Franklin Darnell

The Distant Howling of the Dead Gerald Franklin Darnell

For newlywed bride, Mary Wilkins, her marriage to her husband, Jack, was to be a lifelong commitment. It was 1952, the era of a thriving America, when a young, newly married White couple could assume a legitimate right to expect to live the American dream. Despite the visible but unseen stranglehold of racism, with segregation at the fore, the economy was prosperous and a White couple had every right to be optimistic about their future. It was the time of an emerging middle-class, of modern conveniences, of televisions sets and washing machines, or the inconvenient lack thereof, if you didn't have them. It was also the inception of the suburbs, taking over the landscape, where the exclusive White middle-class aspired to move to. For Mary and Jack, the trouble was, although they were a young, newly married White couple, with Jack just back from fighting in Korea, the middle-class status eluded them. Not able to land a well-paying production job at a factory, Jack has to settle for driving a taxi cab. Only able to afford cheap rent in the city of Des Moines, they move into a cheap duplex in the vicinity of "Colored Town." Having grown up destitute during the Great Depression, with only ramshackle flooring in the "shack" she grew up in, where she'd risk getting splinters in her feet, all that Mary asks for in the way of a modern convenience, something to provide comfort, to make her life better, is a carpet, so she won't get splinters in her feet if she walks across the floor barefoot. For Jack, things aren't so simple. Living next to a young Black couple in the duplex, further rankles his sense of outrage, that, as a White couple, he and Mary shouldn't have to live there in the first place. As Mary soon finds out, Jack harbors a definite antagonism towards Black people, which tends to put a strain on their marriage and makes Mary question just what the American dream is all about anyway.