Too little is written about the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, one of the horrendous race wars of the early 20th century. Rilla Askew uses it for the climactic scenes of "Fire in Beulah." That alone stands as a strong selling point for a novel.

"Fire in Beulah" is the study of two women,one white and one black, living with social outrages of Jim Crow. Althea and Graceful are memorable characters that could carry a book by themselves. But Askew clearly defines the supporting cast, including rich oil men, a half black-half Indian mid wife, and criminals both black and white.

Althea is the wealthy white woman and Graceful her live in maid. One tries to maintain strong family ties, the other has spent a lifetime trying to forget family.

The voices are believable, the historical backdrop well-researched and pacing (difficult in such a story) excellent.

Also, Askew manages to avoid cliches and writes a story that is always unpredicatable.

My only minor quarrel is that some elements of the story are not fully realized. Certain plot lines are never explained. Still, this did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the book.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1920. Althea Whiteside Dedmeyer, the young wife of an oilman, uneasily co-exists in her household with a black servant named Graceful. Althea has a past that she has hidden from her husband Franklin and there is something about Graceful that provokes her. Then one day, a young black boy comes to the Dedmeyer house with a note addressed to Graceful Whiteside. What follows is a chilling account of racial strife and greed over oil strikes.

Althea's past is exposed by a mysterious stranger who whips up turmoil everywhere he goes, ruining Franklin's attempt to sink a new oil well, goading a white mob into lynching and worse. Rilla Askew has a marvelous literary style that brings the 1921 Tulsa race riot painfully back to life. In doing so, she holds tenaciously to the racial views of the time, which can make for uncomfortable reading today. The characters do not experience sudden epiphanies of racial tolerance; there is no feel-good ending. But at that time and place, there couldn't be, and Askew is to be commended for a wonderful merging of literary writing with history.

The Mercy Seat is a rich novel, replete with biblical allusions and biblical themes. It vividly depicts life and the settling of the West during the second half of the 19th century as well as the eternal struggle of good over evil. It is a strong first novel. I found it difficult to get into at the beginning, and I found the ending unsatisfying. But for the most part, it is a gripping read.

The center of the evolving story is the conflict between brothers, recalling biblical struggles between Cain and Abel, Esau and Isaac, etc. John Lodi is a skilled craftsman in the art of gunmaking, and a man of his word; Lafayette [Fate] Lodi is a smooth talker, full of envy. Together they move their families to the San Bois Mountains of Oklahoma; but though they share physical struggles, they have no shared vision. The struggle between the brothers extends to their families, and their communities.

Askew has been compared to Faulkner, in that her themes stress the weight of family history and lore on our lives, our psyches. Additionally, Askew uses the technique of multiple voices in the exposition of the story: Mattie [daughter of John Lodi] is the main narrator, but also narrating portions are her mother, Demaris; Thula Henry, a Choctaw woman with a gift of healing; and several others.

This novel allows you to participate in the heavy cost of settling of America. You encounter: former slaves, still enslaved by prejudice; white men on the run from the law; Native Americans pushed from their homes; Evangelical preachers riding their circuits. You particpate in death, in hunger, in illness, in fear,in helping others to protect yourself, in honoring the miracle and struggle of life.

Rilla Askew's fascinating novel succeeds on several levels. She tells a good story -- one that made this reader want to keep turning pages long after bedtime -- and she accurately portrays a way of life and a multi-layered society that has been ignored by most American writers. However, most impressively, she mixes biblical truths, wisdom of the ages, passion, and the creative imperative, to create a morality tale that is all her own. Askew has been compared to William Faulkner and Toni Morrison, but she is unique: Like them, her talent is undeniable, and like them, she writes about forgotten groups of people, but her voice and the rhythms of her language are incomparable. Her writing is informed by the King James Bible, but the beauty and power of "The Mercy Seat" are strong enough to stand on their own merits, without comparison.

This book is particularly interesting to me since I tramped around the area of the country that serves as the territory of much of the work. There is a uniqueness of this geographical area, given it's kinship with the Indian Nations, early white settlers, and now modern Oklahoma Statehood that is illustrated in a way that captures the unusual and unique character of the people and land it describes.