Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit is a 1944 bestselling debut novel by American author Lillian Smith that deals with the then-forbidden and controversial theme of interracial romance. Its working title was Jordan is so Chilly, but Smith retitled it Strange Fruit prior to publication. In her 1956 autobiography, singer Billie Holiday wrote that Smith named the book after her 1939 song "Strange Fruit", which was about lynching and racism against African Americans. Smith maintained the book's title referred to the "damaged, twisted people (both black and white) who are the products or results of our racist culture." After the book's release, it was banned in Boston and Detroit for "lewdness" and crude language. Strange Fruit was also banned from being mailed through the U.S. Postal Service until President Franklin D. Roosevelt interceded at his wife Eleanor's request. Plot Strange Fruit takes place in a Georgia town in the 1920s and focuses on the relationship between Tracy Deen, son of prominent white townspeople, and Nonnie, a beautiful and intelligent young Black woman whom he once rescued from attacking white boys. The two have a secret affair, and Nonnie becomes pregnant by Tracy, who secretly plans for her to marry "Big Henry," whom she despises, while he marries the good little white girl his parents expect him to marry. He changes his mind after a conversation with a local preacher and intends to make his relationship with Nonnie public. Instead, he tells Nonnie of his original intent to have her marry Big Henry, having paid him money to do so. Nonnie's brother learns of Big Henry's payments from Tracy and the reason behind Big Henry's impending marriage to Nonnie. This prompts Nonnie's brother to kill Tracy. When Tracy's body is discovered by Big Henry, Big Henry is accused of murder and lynched. Publication history Strange Fruit was first published on February 29, 1944, by Reynal and Hitchcock and sold approximately one million hardback copies. It went through two printings as an Armed Services Edition. It was subsequently republished through Penguin's Signet Books imprint (1948, several reprints), and several other publishers such as UGA Press (1985, with a foreword by Fred Hobson), Mariner Books (1992), and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich through their Harvest imprint (1992).