“A haunting, engrossing portrait of two families – one white, one Black – whose lives are woven together and then shattered” (The Washington Post) by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

Oil-boom opulence, fear, hate, and lynchings are the backdrop for this riveting novel about one of the worst incidents of violence in American history. Althea Whiteside, an oil-wildcatter’s high-strung white wife, and her enigmatic Black maid, Graceful, share a complex connection during the tense days of the Oklahoma oil rush. Their juxtaposing stories – and those of others close to them – unfold as tensions mount to a violent climax in the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, during which whites burned the city’s prosperous Black neighborhood to the ground. The massacre becomes the crucible that melds and tests each of the character in this masterful exploration of the American race story and the ties that bind us irrevocably to one another.

"A haunting, engrossing portrait of two families - one white, one black - whose lives are woven together and then shattered" (The Washington Post) by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

Oil-boom opulence, fear, hate, and lynchings are the backdrop for this riveting novel, originally published in 2001. Althea Whiteside, an oil-wildcatter's high-strung white wife, and her enigmatic black maid, Graceful, share a complex connection during the tense days of the Oklahoma oil rush. Their juxtaposing stories - and those of others close to them - unfold as tensions mount to a violent climax in the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, during which whites burned the city's prosperous black neighborhood to the ground. The massacre becomes the crucible that melds and tests each of the character in this masterful exploration of the American race story and the ties that bind us irrevocably to one another.

Praise for Fire in Beulah:

“A haunting, engrossing portrait of two families – one white, one black – whose lives are woven together and then shattered . . . Askew’s final hundred pages are a cinematic, apocalyptic denouement, as all the characters are swept up in the terrible racial tidal wave.”
—The Washington Post
 
“Askew’s tinderbox of a novel is suffused with an almost unbearable tension . . . a moving, troubling story . . .  Askew nails as well as any author in recent memory the claustrophobia of racism, the devastation of hate and the way it sucks all the air out of the world.”
—The Boston Globe
 
Compelling, intense and frightening . . . recalls and recreates a devastating if largely forgotten historical event in order to explore the awful consequences of human failure.”
—Chicago Tribune
 
“A devastating story of greed, violence, and destruction . . . Askew’s novel is riveting and remarkably relevant.”
—The Portland Oregonian