Black Peaches

Dori Sanders, Clover (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1990).

The owner of the oldest black-owned peach orchard in the South (the nation) is also a writer. Her books, Clover and Her Own Place draw on her agricultural vocation. In Clover, the peach orchard weaves in and out of the story.

Clover is the daughter of the newly married widower Gaten Hill. Hill dies in the beginning of the novel, leaving Clover alone with her new (white) stepmother Sara Kate, and her uncle Jim Ed and aunt Everleen. It is a story of coming to terms with death and abandonment, as well with the racial and cultural differences between her and Sara Kate. But Round Hill, SC is peach country, and the orchard business remains a backdrop throughout.

At her father's funeral, for example, Clover describes the strangeness she feels for her new stepmother and goes off on a tangent about farmworkers:

She's been my stepmother for almost four days now and all I know for sure about her is, she's not a Mexican. I can spot a Mexican a mile away. Every summer if there's a big peach crop the migrant workers flood Round Hill. We have peaches, but not enough to need Mexicans.
Chase Porter brings them in all the time. He couldn't get al those peaches picked without them. He's one of the biggest peach growers in South Carolina.

This Chase Porter and his relationship with Clover's family creates an intriguing window into the world of peach growers, large and small. He turns up later in the book as a suitor for Clover's white stepmother Sara Kate, and he has a reputation for great benevolence as the leading peach man in the area (even though Clover's uncle Jim Ed interprets his advances as pure greed. "A white man," he says, "never gets enough land or money" (137).

The Hills appear to get most of their money through their peach stand, and Clover spends most of her summer days there with her aunt and uncle, where all kinds of people stop for peaches.

Jim Ed is so worried about this peach crop I don't want to put another frown on his face. It wouldn't have any place to go, anyhow. His face is all filled up. A late spring freeze caused the peaches to have split-seeds. That means that once the seed of a peach freezes, the peach will split wide open as soon as it starts to get ripe. When customers complain about the way peaches look, Aunt Everleen will tell them right quick, "That's the Lord's work." It's a real slow day at the stand. Everleen jumps to her feet when a brand new pickup pulls up. "I see you have Elberta peaches on your sign," he says. "Yes, we do," Everleen brags. "It's the finest canning peach there is. Del Monte cans Elbertas. Says so right on the can." "Oh, I was wanting some to eat," the customer says. "It's the finest eating peach there is," Everleen put in quickly She rubs one on her big fluffy shirt, and takes a big bite. "This is truly the best peach I ever tasted." She stuffs the money he gives her into her pocket. He is a physicist down at the nuclear plant. I put his peck of peaches in his truck.

Clover is a very funny book, not least because of the culinary differences between Sara Kate and the Round Hill black community. Sara Kate cooks vegetables in water, without a speck of grease, and makes watery grits. She even puts jello on the turnip greens. After lunch one day, Clover narrates,

Sara Kate finally offers iced tea and cookies. I don't have to see them to know she will get those fancy paper doilies and those fancy, high-priced cookies that don't taste worth a dime. That woman can spend more in a grocery store than anybody I've ever seen in my life. And we still never have anything good to eat.