Summary
In his 1993 novel Wolf Whistle, author Lewis Nordan both retells history and creates a fictional world influenced by his childhood in Mississippi. The novel is based on a real-life American tragedy: in 1955 in Money, Mississippi, Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old African-American boy, was murdered for whistling at a white woman; the two white men who committed the crime were acquitted. This event became a landmark in the life of Nordan, who was fifteen years old at the time of Till’s death, and a turning point in the civil rights movement.
At its opening, Wolf Whistle focuses on Alice Conroy, a young, white college graduate who has come to stay with her Uncle Runt and teach fourth grade in Arrow Catcher, Mississippi. A white boy who would have been Alice’s student, Glenn Gregg, is indefinitely absent from school because he is severely injured. Glenn had tried to light his violent father, Solon Gregg, on fire, but the child spilled the gasoline and was burned instead.
Alice takes her students on a field trip to visit Glenn at his ramshackle home in a poor white neighborhood, where they meet his odd but captivating mother. Mrs. Gregg can only overcome her stutter by speaking in the cadence of the song “Here Comes Santa Claus,” which is even odder to her audience given the early September heat. After listening to Mrs. Gregg’s otherworldly chatter, Alice foresees a string of events, including documented moments in civil rights history such as the deaths of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King Jr. Mrs. Gregg’s bizarreness and Alice’s resulting vision are the first instances of magic realism in the novel.
In the second chapter, Solon Gregg returns to Arrow Catcher after a six-month stint of drinking, robbery, and possibly murder (though he cannot quite remember) in New Orleans. Solon heads to Red’s Goodlookin Bar and Gro., where Bobo—a fourteen-year-old African-American boy—goofs around with his friends outside. By this point in the novel, the style of the narrative has shifted to reflect the heavy Southern vernacular of Red’s patrons, which contrasts with the educated speech and thoughts of Alice Conroy. The limited-omniscient point of view shifts focus throughout the novel to reflect the experience of a multitude of major and minor characters, including pigeons, buzzards, and a “demon eye.”
As Bobo brags about his white girlfriend back home in Chicago, Sally Anne Montberclair, an affluent white woman, pulls up to the store in her Cadillac. Bobo’s friends dare him to flirt with her, and he does: he "wolf whistles" at her, which indicates that Bobo finds Sally Anne sexually attractive. Two pigeons roosting on the roof comment on the action before Solon Gregg confronts Bobo and tells him to apologize. Sally Anne, aware that no good can come from the confrontation, drives Bobo from the scene in a great hurry, but not before Bobo reveals his name, where he is from, and who he is staying with in town.
Solon decides to seek out Sally Anne’s husband, Dexter Montberclair, at his mansion and relay what happened at Red’s. The two armed men drink together, seemingly ready to shoot at any second. Dexter is in a fragile state: his wife has been sleeping in “her office,” and he is overcome with loneliness and worry. He regards Solon with thinly veiled repugnance throughout the conversation. Despite his inebriation, he digests the information Solon imparts. Solon then returns home for the first time since the fire, where he learns that his son is disfigured and dying.
Rain drenches the Mississippi Delta as Alice walks to her Uncle Runt’s house...
(This entire section contains 1406 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
from school. Inside a raindrop on her slicker, she sees a drowned boy in a river, as if the drop were a crystal ball. Once she is at home, Runt’s five children and Alice try to get Runt’s African parrot to talk, but the bird only makes the sound of a cash register. Alice came to live with her uncle in order to help take care of the children; her Aunt Fortunata left Runt, unable to withstand his alcoholism any longer. Their oldest child, fourteen-year-old Roy Dale, sneaks out that night to meet with the black blues musicians at Rage Gage’s barber shop. The boy is an after-hours regular at the shop and a favorite of Rage’s one-handed monkey. In between songs, the blues singers discuss inequality and the incident at Red’s that morning. A flock of buzzards named after Mississippi politicians roosts overhead.
That night, Solon fantasizes about killing himself and his entire hapless family as he lies in bed in the decrepit Arrow Hotel. In a realm between sleep and wakefulness, he hears Dexter enter the room and recount his discovery of Sally Anne’s infidelity. She cheated on her husband with a young, white organist, and the raging, confused, and drunk Dexter decides he wants Solon to murder Bobo. Solon agrees to do the job for $1,000, Dexter’s El Camino, and his Luger revolver, which will supplement Solon’s ineffective .25 caliber pistol.
When Solon and Dexter arrive at Bobo’s great aunt and uncle’s house, Dexter stays in the car. The kind, loving married couple try to reason with Solon, but Solon beats Bobo and forces him into the car. Dexter begins to realize that he has acted rashly and senselessly, so Solon throws him out and drives away with Bobo in the pouring rain, trying to make small talk with his victim the entire way to Roebuck Lake. Close to the spillway, Solon throws his small pistol and the $1,000 out the window. He then stops the car and musters the courage to traverse a flooded stretch of road ahead. Bobo slips out of the car, recovers the discarded pistol, and shoots Solon several times. Solon still has the more powerful Luger, and a shot knocks one of Bobo’s eyes out of its socket and kills him.
In the haunting passage that follows, readers see the world of the novel through Bobo’s detached “immortal eye.” Among other things, the magical eye sees Solon tether Bobo to a cotton gin fan before dumping the fan and body into the lake. The eye sees two teenage boys find Bobo’s body two weeks later, his feet sticking up out of the water.
Solon and Dexter are arrested for murder, and on the day of the trial, Alice Conroy sits with her students in the courtroom balcony, which is designated for “coloreds.” She has brought the children for an educational field trip, though even she finds this decision somewhat misguided. Her uncle, also in attendance, is accompanied by his parrot. Bobo’s uncle (known as “Uncle”), who will testify against Solon, is one of the few African Americans on the ground floor. His life has been threatened every day since the murderers were arrested, and he is exhausted, terrified, and alone. As he looks about the courtroom, Alice waves her arms and shouts, “We are here! We colored people are behind you!” and the children follow her lead. After a darkly comic scene where Runt’s parrot flies around the courtroom and defecates down Solon’s shirt, Uncle identifies Solon as the man who took Bobo from his house. However, due to the racial injustice prevalent in the South before the civil rights movement gained momentum, Dexter and Solon are acquitted.
Alice’s aunt returns, and when the school year ends, Alice prepares to leave Arrow Catcher. After packing up her classroom, she takes a detour on the walk home that deposits her in Swami Don’s Elegant Junk shop, where Sally Anne Montberclair has also come in search of nothing in particular. Alice finds an affinity with Sally Anne, despite the awkwardness of their interaction. Sally Anne says Dexter has gone away. She is leaving town as well, though she will not join her husband. Briefly, and with difficulty assuaged only by a few desperate jokes, the two women discuss the recent tragedy in the “magic stuff” aisle. Among wands, talismans, and tarot cards sits a crystal ball, but Alice and Sally Anne see nothing inside it when they look. The novel closes with the narrator’s suggestion that maybe, while their backs were turned, the ball shone with “bright blue light,” hinting at a possible, though ambiguous, image of hope for the future.
