The Chinaberry Tree: A Novel of American Life
by Jessie Redmon Fauset

Adultery, incest, and questions of racial identity simmer beneath the tranquil surface of suburban life in this novel, set in a small New Jersey town of the early 1900s. Lovely young Laurentine is obsessed with her “bad blood,” inherited from a common-law interracial union. Proud and independent, she longs for the respectability of a conventional marriage. Laurentine“s vivacious and self-confident cousin, Melissa, also aspires to "marry up." But a family secret shadows Melissa“s dreams and ambitions as she approaches an explosive revelation.