Remember Box (Sprinkle)

The Remember Box (Job's Corner Series #1)
Patricia Sprinkle, 2000
Bella Rosa / Zondervan Press
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781933523095

Summary
I stroked the satin wood in delight and confusion. Why should Uncle Stephen send it to me? The Remember Box was Aunt Kate's private place, the one we were sternly forbidden to open. Suddenly I was reluctant, even fearful—a modern Pandora, about to let out our own lost world. That box held one year I'd spent a lifetime trying to forget.

Summer in Job's Corner meant big trees, cool grass, and sweltering afternoons stretching endlessly under the Southern sun. Those were the days without plastic, microwaves, television, or air conditioning, a time when clocks ticked comfortingly in the night and a cool breeze was a gift. But as the long sultry summer of 1949 comes to an end, events will transform this sleepy Southern crossroads.

After losing her mother to polio, eleven-year-old Carley Marshall comes to Job's Corner to make a new start, along with her Aunt Kate and Uncle Stephen Whitfield and her cousins Abby and John. The family is welcomed warmly by this small North Carolina community as Stephen takes up the post of pastor to Bethel Church, a Presbyterian congregation. But their welcome begins to wear thin and covert criticism runs rampant as Stephen challenges age-old beliefs and traditions.

As Job's Corner confronts national struggles for civil rights, coal strikes, and hysteria over Communism, Stephen's voice of reason gets lost in the growing hostility of a vocal minority. Though this quintessential Southern community seems to be filled with people who are the salt of the earth, secrets and lies are hidden beneath the easy-going surface—and the truth must be revealed before an innocent man is convicted of murder.

With the dawning of a new decade, Carley learns to face her own family secrets. And discovers that we all must make the journey to truth alone. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
Patricia H. Sprinkle is a freelance writer whose nonfiction books include the companion to this volume, Children Who Do Too Little. She is also a best-selling mystery writer and an active member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. She is a frequent speaker at seminars and women's conferences and lives in Miami with her husband. They have two grown children. (From the publisher.)

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In her own words:

My folks are North Carolinians, but lived in West Virginia for three years, just long enough to have my sister and me, while my preacher dad served coal field churches. When I was two we moved to Loray, North Carolina, just outside of Statesville. My little sister and I did a lot of things the children do in my novels The Remember Box and Carley's Song. Five years later we moved to Wilmington, where we played in the Atlantic and promised we’d swim to France--tomorrow. When I was twelve, we moved down the coast to Jacksonville, Florida. I decided in ninth grade to become a writer, so after Robert E. Lee High, I headed to Vassar College, which had a great creative writing program.

After college I returned to my folks, by then in Miami, to work toward a serious test of my writing commitment. With $750, one suitcase, two coats and a portable typewriter, I headed the next October to a Scottish Highland village where, at that time, room and board cost $14 a week. Before the money ran out, I had sold one poem, one article, one short story, and a one-act play. Fortified by that major impact on British literature, I moved to Atlanta and started a series of writing-related jobs. But no matter what I was writing, what I was reading was mostly mysteries.

When I met and married Bob in 1970, he looked over our budget and demanded, "Why don’t you write a mystery to pay for all the ones you buy?" I immediately took a building where I’d once worked and put a body in its basement. However, being over endowed with the Protestant ethic, I wrote "important" things first and only wrote the mystery in my spare time, so my first mystery, Murder at Markham (reissued by Silver Dagger in 2001), took thirteen years to complete. It took even longer for me to learn that any writing which gives me pleasure is important, whether fiction or non-fiction.

Since 1988 I have written 20 mysteries, two other novels, and five non-fiction books, and currently am writing the first of two non-mystery novels in a new series. I am so grateful to my readers and editors for letting me do what I enjoy most in the world. Bob has concluded that writing is not a profession, it's an obsession—my favorite vacation is to go to a place where somebody else fixes my meals and where I can write more than I do at home, without interruptions. Thanks, if you are one of the readers who keeps my fingers on the keys. I do enjoy spending time with you at conferences, book clubs, and signing events.

Bob is still my encourager and faithful patron of the arts. During our thirty-eight years together we have lived in Atlanta (four times), Chicago (twice), St. Petersburg (twice), Mobile, and Miami. Along the way we had two sons. Barnabas is married to Emi and they have two little boys. Ask me about my grandsons! Our younger son, David, lives and optimizes web sites in New York City, plays drums and a mean electric piano, and composes beautiful music.

The rest of what you want to know, you’ll find in my books. The people are different, but the basic stories are true. I always figure, why make up anything I can remember instead? (From the author's website.)

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Book Reviews
Patricia Sprinkle weaves an interesting tale with vivid description ... Unlike much Christian fiction there is no overriding spiritual lesson in this story. It's just a good old-fashioned tale of the happenings in a small Southern town. And Sprinkle may be credited for not trying to include a last-minute spiritual twist simply to end the story.
Christian Retailing

In this Christian novel, Sprinkle (author of the Sheila Travis mysteries and When Did We Lose Harriet?) deftly addresses racial tensions in the segregated South in 1949. Carley Marshall, an 11-year-old white girl, is forced to move in with her aunt and uncle in their sleepy village of Job's Corner, N.C., after her mother dies. Having been raised under the influence of her racially conservative grandmother, Carley is startled by the attitude of her preacher-uncle, a firm advocate of biblical equality. The town has similar concerns about him. For the people of Job's Corner, eating meals prepared by blacks is de rigueur, while sitting down to table with them is another matter entirely. In Uncle Steven, Sprinkle has crafted a strong yet sympathetic character whose ideas on race and social justice are ahead of their time. In his wife, Kate, torn between her love for her husband and her fear of what people will think of them, Sprinkle allows readers to see the toll such visionary leadership can have on a family. Written as a flashback, the novel is aptly named as the grown-up Carley struggles to write the true story of what happened in Job's Corner in 1949 from a box of tangible memories. Readers will enjoy Sprinkle's memorable cast of characters and unexpected plot twists, and be challenged by her message of racial equality.
Publishers Weekly

After her Aunt Kate dies, Carley Marshall's uncle, Stephen Whitfield, gives her Kate's "remember box" and asks her to write its story, the story of the year the family lived in the segregated Job's Corner, NC. Before the Civil Rights movement became a national concern, Stephen, the pastor of Bethel Church, lived by his beliefs that all men are loved equally by God regardless of color. This unpopular opinion and his outspoken criticism of anti-Communist rhetoric split his congregation further. As 11-year-old Carley, a ward in her uncle's household, learned to think for herself, a violent murder and the sexual assault of a retarded girl tore the community apart and threatened the strength, solidity, and beliefs of the Whitfield family. Acclaimed mystery maven Sprinkle lends her unique voice to the Christian market with this part whodunit, part black comedy, and part coming of age novel.
Library Journal

(Adult/High School) A novel that captures readers in short order. Now adults, Abby gives her cousin Carley a "remember box" that had belonged to Abby's mother. As Carley lifts the objects from the box, readers are given hints as to the importance of each piece but must read on to learn the whole story that unfolded so many years before as recorded by Carley. In 1949, when her mother died, 11-year-old Carley was sent to live with her Aunt Kate, Uncle Steven, four-year-old Abby, and infant John in Job's Corner, NC, where Steven was the new Presbyterian minister. Feisty, brave, and aware, young Carley faces the racial bigotry in herself and others that is the social norm of the time, bred into children by blacks and whites alike. The treachery of some adults is brought home when her uncle stands trial after being falsely accused of molestation, again when a black family friend is nearly convicted of murder, and in the dangerous encounter she has with the father she had thought was dead. She also witnesses the uncommon heroics and self-sacrifice that can be found in the most unexpected places. The story lures readers along as the pieces fall into place. The characters are steeped in reality, drawn convincingly and full of the surprises inherent in ordinary people. The story should provoke some interesting discussion about situations that are as real today as they were then. —Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA
School Library Journal

Sprinkle's Remember Box is modeled on To Kill a Mockingbird with 11-year-old Carley Marshall standing in for Scout.... Sprinkle, known for her mysteries with rich southern settings, competently evokes the 1950s hysteria over Communism and racism, and her characterizations, particularly of the sullen black servant, Raifa, are filled with wisdom. But it's hard to escape the feeling you've been here before. —John Mort
Booklist

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Discussion Questions
We have two sets of questions for this work: the first kindly submitted by the Joaquin (Texas) Book Club, and the second from LitLovers.

1. On some sites, Patricia Sprinkle is categorized as a Christian writer. Do you think that this is a “Christian” book?

2. Does using an adult narrator flashing back to her tweens make the story unfold better? Would you say this is a young adult novel or an adult one?

3. Did the hymn titles and/or introductory remarks before each part increase your understanding of the story?

4. At the end, Carley comments that “each of us is a blend of good and evil.” Is that true of all the characters in this book? For instance, can you think of something good about Miz Baines, Pauline, or Carley’s father?

5. Among the characters Carley considers “good” are Uncle Stephen, Aunt Hannah, Big Mama, Jay, and Rilla. Are they too good, or do they also have believable faults?

6. At the end, grown-up Abby asks, “You didn’t make me talk funny, did you?” How did you feel about Abby’s speech patterns—distracting, cute, annoying, whatever?

7. There are big topics explored in this book—racism, communism, mistreatment of workers, gender roles, and alcoholism, for example. Are these topics dealt with even-handedly, or does the reader see mostly a one-sided view? (If one-sided, is it the “correct” view?)

8. Is Uncle Stephen a good preacher/pastor? Do Kate and the children make his job easier or harder? How would you feel as his parishioner?

9. Both Jay and Stephen are accused and tried with little evidence. Would this have happened in 1950s legal and/or church system (or today)? In both cases, Carley is instrumental in uncovering the truth: Again, is this believable (including the adults’ acceptance of the children’s testimony)?

10. Do you agree with the way forgiveness is presented in this book? What characters need to be forgiven, and in what situations?

11. Did you notice any parts of this book that were particularly descriptive?

(The above questions are courtesy of Joaquin Book Club—thanks for the generosity!)

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1. In what way do Big Mama's views differ from Uncle Stephen's on the social questions of the day? How different is each of their understanding of the Bible and its message?

2. How is the minister's family first received in Job's Corner, and what percipitates the community's changing attitudes toward them? (You might also talk about the significance of the town's name.)

3. Discuss the novel's characters. Which ones do you find most sympathetic or admirable. Which ones do you identify with the least?

4. Talk about Aunt Kate and how she deals with the controversy surrounding her husband?

5. How would you describe the townspeople of Job's Corner? Are they typical, or atypical, of southerners back in the mid-20th century? Has Sprinkle depicted them adequately, fairly, or realistically? Have attitudes and beliefs changed over the past 50 or 60 years?

6. Talk about how the story's two main issues, race and communism, have changed. Historically, what national and international events led to the changes? Talk, too, about the labor movement, the influence of Billy Graham, and the threat of polio.

7. The Remember Box can be seen as a coming-of-age story. Carley is on the cusp of adolescence when she goes to live with her aunt and uncle. How does she mature—what does she come to understand about herself and the adult world—during the course of the novel?

8. Talk about the contents of the Remember Box. Why does Uncle Stephen's purpose in sending it to Carley? How does she feel upon receiving it? She refers to it as Pandora's Box—what does she mean by that?

9. Going through the box resurrects an ugly past for Carley. In your own life is it important to revisit a painful past, or is it sometimes best to let the past alone and move on?

10. This novel has been compared to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. If you've read that work (or seen the film with Gregory Peck), how similar, or dissimilar, are these two works?

(The above questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use either set of questions, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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