Those We Thought We Knew by David Joy

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on August 1, 2023

Detective Leah Green works for a small Sheriff’s Office in a mountain community. She’s investigating the murder of Toya Gardner. Toya was a black civil rights activist. She returned to her home to protest a statue honoring a Confederate officer. Green believes Toya’s murder is related to the beating of a sheriff’s deputy who was unofficially investigating the Klan.

Sheriff John Coggins is focused on the beating of his deputy and wants Green to handle Toya’s murder on her own. He says he views the beating and the murder as unrelated crimes. In truth, when Toya’s father was still alive, he was Coggins’ best friend. Coggins quarreled with Toya about her activism before she died and, now that she’s been murdered, he seems to be troubled by his emotions. Toya all but calls him a racist. Coggins doesn't believe her father saw him that way, although they never had a meaningful discussion about race. Staying sober has been a challenge during Coggins' forty years as Sheriff. After Toya’s death, it’s a challenge he’s losing.

Ernie Allison is the deputy who takes a beating. He arrested William Dean Cawthorne for public drunkenness. By the time Ernie arrived, Cawthorne had passed out in his car. Ernie searched the car and found a Klan robe. He also found a notebook that appeared to list Klan members. Some are in politics, some in law enforcement. Ernie didn’t seize the notebook, but when he went back to take another look at it, the notebook was gone. His awareness of the names in the notebook might explain why he was left for dead under a giant illuminated cross.

Figuring out who attacked Ernie isn’t difficult after Ernie regains consciousness and, despite his limited memory, provides a few clues. Cawthorne is the obvious suspect for Toya’s murder but crime fiction fans know that the obvious suspect rarely proves to be the killer. Other suspects include a college kid, an eccentric man who saw a snake in his house and won’t set foot inside it at night, a gun dealer who trades in unlawful firearms, and a “grumpy old cuss.” None of those suspects seem particularly promising, but who knows?

Much of the novel addresses the complexity of race relations. White characters who are not overtly racist nevertheless make familiar arguments about how Confederate statues reflect heritage. They claim (usually without actual knowledge) that their ancestors owned no slaves. They don’t feel responsible for the lingering impact of slavery and don’t recognize the racist symbolism that is inherent in Confederate memorials. They complain that activists “stir things up” and deny that they personally benefitted from slavery.

Toya and some other characters argue that many white people in modern America enjoy a privilege that has been denied to many black people, a privilege that represents the vestiges of slavery. They argue that their voices are not heard and that whites who defend Confederate memorials on the ground of tradition deliberately ignore the intent to perpetuate black subjugation that drove southern states to insurrection.

It’s heartening when a white character explains how he transcended the white supremacist atmosphere in which he was raised. He has learned that being proud of your heritage doesn’t mean embracing everything the heritage entails. The character argues that most of his peers never opened a book after they dropped out of school. They base their knowledge of history on an uncritical acceptance of whatever their fathers told them.

Characters on both sides of the debate feel that the other side isn’t listening, but the reality is that black people have had no choice but to listen to white perspectives since the Civil War ended. It is the “traditionalists” who have closed their minds to the truth about the tradition they defend. That some white people are awakening to the impact of racism on American society has caused frantic condemnations of by the likes of Fon DeSantis about people who are "woke,” as if listening to people with an open mind and learning from them is a bad thing. (I should make clear that this paragraph represents my editorializing. The novel doesn't mention DeSantis or even the word "woke.")

Notwithstanding the importance to society of conversations like those imagined in the novel, long lectures don’t necessarily lend themselves to good fiction. Too much pontification places a drag on crime novels. You either get it or you don’t. Readers who get it don’t need to wade through obvious lectures to reinforce their beliefs. Readers who don’t get it — well, how many of them actually read a novel that doesn’t have guns on the cover or the word Patriot in the title?

Those We Thought We Knew works best when it captures the pain of Toya’s mother and grandmother, both of whom feel a mix of pride at her bravery and regret that they didn’t talk her out of high-profile activism in a redneck community. A scene involving the grandmother’s response to redneck kids revving the diesel engine of a pickup to pollute a candlelight vigil for Toya is the novel’s high point.

The revelation of the killer’s identity isn’t much of a surprise, if only because it seems intended to further David Joy’s political point at the expense of creating a strong ending. Again, while I agree with the novel’s recognition that people who defend Confederate statues are not basing their opinions on reason or history, Joy’s determination to make the point that they are defending a tradition of racism interferes with his storytelling. The strengths of Those We Thought We Knew nevertheless outweigh my reservations about the way the story is told.

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