Book Talk: Family secrets bared in ‘Where Wild Peaches Grow’

A family broken by betrayal and reunited by the death of a patriarch is the stuff of many a Southern novel, and so it is with “Where Wild Peaches Grow,” a generational story by South Euclid author Cade Bentley.

Sisters Julia and Nona Davenport have been estranged for 20 years, since Nona disappeared as a teenager. Mother Cat had left the family long before that. The reasons for these estrangements unfold over the course of the book.

When Julia calls Nona to tell her their father has died, Nona comes home to Natchez. She intends to stay in a hotel and go back to Chicago after the funeral, but instead finds herself right back in the tangled drama that caused her to leave. She learns shocking news about Julia’s life in the intervening years and encounters several men from her past.

Nona is a tenured professor in African American Studies and has lived in Chicago long enough that she’s startled when her sister calls her “Peaches,” her childhood nickname. Her boyfriend is well practiced at manipulating her, and she has become accustomed to letting him make all her decisions.

Julia’s fellow sixth-grade teacher Sanganette is her lifetime best friend but they have a troubled dynamic, with Sanganette willfully oblivious about “heritage” and “Southern pride,” what Julia considers a “romanticized view” of Southern history. It’s difficult to defend Julia’s friendship with this infuriating character.

Julia also sells real estate and expects to inherit all her father’s many properties. In addition to her bereavement, it seems that every minute there’s “another man in her way.”

Threaded through the story are veiled references to a local site called the Devil’s Punchbowl, where something significant may have happened. It will take Nona’s academic skills to find the truth, which isn’t revealed until the end, after a cathartic face-off and the reading of the will. Every member of this messy family is harboring secrets from every other family member, and most keep decades-old bitter grudges; some of them about things that they’ve misinterpreted or been misled about.

Cade Bentley writes the Romaine Wilder mystery series under her real name, Abby Vandiver, and the Chagrin Falls-set Ice Cream Parlor mystery series as Abby Collette.

“Where Wild Peaches Grow” (301 pages, softcover) costs $14.95 from Lake Union Publishing.

Events

Abby Vandiver is the newest Writer in Residence at the William N. Skirball Writers Center. She will appear at a reception and author fair from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of Cuyahoga County Public Library, 1876 South Green Road, South Euclid. Other authors include Deanna Adams (“Cleveland’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Venues”), Zachary Fenell (“Slow and Cerebral”), LaBena Fleming (“I Love You Always: One Family’s Alzheimer’s/Dementia Journey and the Lessons Learned Along the Way”), Erin Hosier (“Don’t Let Me Down”), N. Lichells (“Santa Claus: Comes to Town”), Molly Perry (“The Letter from Sweet Abundance”), Susan Petrone (“The Heebie-Jeebie Girl”) and D.M. Pulley (“The Dead Key”.) Register at cuyahogalibrary.org.

Cleveland Book Week continues with events featuring the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners in most categories appearing in various locations, beginning with Donika Kelly (“The Renunciations”) and Percival Everett (“The Trees”), on Wednesday and Ishmael Reed (Lifetime Achievement), and George Makari (“Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia”). The awards will be presented Thursday at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. Masks required at all events. All are free, but registration is required; go to anisfield-wolf.org.

Loganberry Books (13015 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Heights): Wildlife rehabilitator and veterinarian Timm Otterson signs “All Creatures Weird and Dangerous,” 1 p.m. Saturday. At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Kristin Ohlson talks to Caroline Tait of Holden Forests & Gardens about “Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in Nature,” 7 p.m. Wednesday. Gloria Pope signs “Hero: Memoirs of Infertility,” 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

Medina County District Library (210 S. Broadway St.): Terry Pluto talks about “Vintage Browns: A Warm Look Back at the Cleveland Browns of the 1970s, ‘80s, ‘90s and More” and his many other sports books, 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Hudson Library & Historical Society: Paco Underhill talks about “How We Eat: The Brave New World of What We Eat” in a Zoom event at 7 p.m. Tuesday. At 7 p.m. Thursday, Newsweek International senior editor Andrew Nagorski talks about “Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom”; at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nigella Lawson discusses “Cook, Eat, Repeat: Ingredients, Recipes, and Stories.” Register at hudsonlibrary.org.

Geauga County Public Library (Bainbridge branch, 17222 Snyder Road, Chagrin Falls): Cleveland lawyer and activist Terry Gilbert, with co-author Carlo Wolff, discuss Gilbert’s memoir “Trying Times: A Lawyer’s 50-Year Struggle Fighting for Rights in a World of Wrongs,” 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday. Register at geaugalibrary.net.

LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland (6705 Detroit Ave.): Donika Kelly, winner of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Prize for Poetry, reads from “The Revelations” as part of Cleveland Book Week, 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday. Masks required. Free, but registration required; go to anisfield-wolf.org.

St. Ignatius of Antioch (10205 Lorain Ave., Cleveland): Percival Everett, author of “The Trees” and winner of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Prize for Fiction, presents “A Reckoning with Shared History” at the site of Cleveland’s only documented lynching, 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. Free, but registration required; go to anisfield-wolf.org.

Western Reserve Land Conservancy: Jonathan C. Slaght appears in a virtual presentation of “Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl,” 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Register at wrlandconservancy.org.

Cuyahoga County Public Library (Brecksville branch, 9089 Brecksville Road): Dave Schwensen, author of “The Beatles in Cleveland,” presents “The Beatles at Shea Stadium: The Beginning of Stadium Rock,” 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. Register at cuyahogalibrary.org.

Cuyahoga County Public Library (South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch, 1876 South Green Road, South Euclid): Jill Bialosky talks to Paula McLain about Bialosky’s new novel “The Deceptions,” 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday. Register at cuyahogalibrary.org.

Music Box Supper Club: Vince Tornero, host of “The Wrath of the Buzzard” podcast, joins the Cleveland Stories Dinner Parties series, with guests John Gorman, author of “The Buzzard: Inside the Glory Days of WMMS and Cleveland Rock Radio,” former WMMS radio personalities Ed “Flash” Ferenc and Denny Sanders, and David Spero, author (with K. Adrian Zonneville) of “A Life in the Wings: My Sixty Year Love Affair with Rock and Roll: A Memoir,” 7 p.m. Thursday. Dinner is $20; the lecture is free. Go to musicboxcle.com.

Cuyahoga County Public Library (Strongsville branch, 18700 Westwood Drive): Marty Gitlin, author of “Cleveland Browns,” gives “A Dawg Pound Presentation – The History of the Cleveland Browns,” 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday. Register at cuyahogalibrary.org.

Mac’s Backs (1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights): Joe Meno, author of “Book of Extraordinary Tragedies,” and Liz Breazeale (Extinction Event: Stories” read from their work from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

Cuyahoga County Public Library (Beachwood branch, 25501 Shaker Blvd.): Kwame Christian discusses “How to Have Difficult Conversations About Race,” 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday. Register at cuyahogalibrary.

Stark County Public Library (715 Market Avenue N., Canton): Joseph Sepesy talks about how ballroom dancing was therapeutic for his post-traumatic stress disorder, and signs “Word Dances: A Collection of Verses and Thoughts about Ballroom Dancing,” 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. Register at starklibrary.org.

Cleveland Public Library (325 Superior Ave.): The Great Lakes African American Writers Conference features workshops and speakers, including the Alice Dunbar-Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award winner Walter Mosley, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, with a virtual option. Free, but registration is required; go to at glaawc.us.

Snowball Bookshop (564 W. Tuscarawas Ave., Barberton): Roy Ault signs “Jeep,” about his Ohio State classmate Glenn “Jeep” Davis, the Barberton hurdler and sprinter who won three gold medals in the 1956 and 1960 Olympics, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Email information about books of local interest, and event notices at least two weeks in advance to BeaconBookTalk@gmail.com and bjnews@thebeaconjournal.com. Barbara McIntyre tweets at @BarbaraMcI.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Author Cade Bentley knows ‘Where Wild Peaches Grow’