Members of the Tribe

by Richard Kluger

Book Overview

1977, hardcover edition, Doubleday, NY, 471 pages. Murder trial novel set in Savannah. The year is 1913. A pretty teenaged employee of a local factory is found murdered in a basement. A young Jewish... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385129890
• ISBN13: 9780385129893
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 471 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Skillful blending of history and fiction set in Savannah.

This is an old book fresh in my memory after twenty years. Moved from Atlanta to the more colorful setting of Savannah, this real-life mystery of the murder of Mary Phagan in 1913 and the historic rise of Coca Cola are blended ficticiously into a satisfying story. It is a tragic description of the outbreak of anti-semitism in Georgia following the strangling of a teenage factory worker, allegedly by her Jewish employer. Savannah itself is the main character, lovingly described by a "Yankee" admirer. This is a great read with a tantilizing twist at the end, well worth rereading especially since the "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" phenomenon hit the bookshelves and video stores. In real life, the case led to the conviction of Leo Frank, who was later lynched by the Ku Klux Klan to thwart his life sentence. In fact, this case was the catalyst that brought the Klan back to life in 1915, initially as the Knights of Mary Phagan. As a fifteen year-old, I remember riding the bus to Rich's Department Store in downtown Atlanta. Across the street at the soda fountain, postcards of Leo Frank hanging from an Oak limb were for sale on the revolving rack. That was more than forty years after the lynching.