Son of Andalusia by Thomas K. Matthews

Son of Andalusia is a powerfully written work of historical fiction, starting with the author’s forward about the difficult life his father had growing up in Alabama, an early life that contained too much pain and shame. The power of this story, told through the narrative and biting dialogue, lasts through the final page. The tale takes place in an Alabama prison starting in 1926 when a child is born to an inmate, Mariah Christianson. Matthews’ first sentence and the following lines in the book are beautiful and dramatic: “Nothing could stop the birth or the storm. Both mother and sky joined in a state of expulsion that could not be deterred by God or man. The rain and the wind came from nowhere and joined the drama unfolding in barracks one.”

Matthews explains that this child, who is the Son of Andalusia, could be raised by an inmate and is destined to be taken in by the State’s child services. But Elizabeth Thatcher, the wife of the warden, had desperately wanted a child but had ben childless, and she demanded that her husband give her the child to raise as their own. Warden Hollister Thatcher hated this idea, but he was hopelessly in love with his wife and he gave into her demand. The book explores the effect of this tension between the warden’s love for his wife and his hate for this child. As the author explained in the forward, in this saga, there is ample pain and shame to go around.

James Thatcher/Christianson is a remarkable boy and young man as the reader follows him for the first 17 years of his life. Meanwhile the warden is effectively the tsar of the prison and can get away with anything, including murder. James, a forgiving, honest, and charismatic young man, is the perfect foil for his drunken and evildoing father. When Elizabeth succumbs to an illness, that leaves the warden free to ignore his wife’s deathbed pleas to continue the boys education and nurturing.

This is the fourth book I’ve read by Matthews and it is different than the others. I’ve favorably reviewed his other books, but this is not just a murder mystery, although there is plenty of crime that occurs. There is a stark quality to this dark novel which only heightens the experience of reading it. Had I not been flush with too many other tasks to get done, this would have been a book that I read in one sitting. This novel gets my strongest recommendation.