The Barefoot Followers of Sweet Potato Grace
A Novel
Mysterious out-of-towners help a mourning young woman embrace her inner adventurer in The Barefoot Followers of Sweet Potato Grace, Megan Okonsky’s joyous novel about coming out and coming of age.
Pinky, who was boxed into returning to Tombstone, Texas, by COVID-19 closures, has “never been on a plane and never been in love.” Though she has a big heart and a wide imagination, few people fully know and accept her; with the death of Sweet Potato Grace, her rescued alley cat, there’s one less name on the list. She prepares to shock her friends and family via a “combination cat-eulogy-and-coming-out-speech,” but it is interrupted by the arrival of enigmatic outsiders. Among them is Mars, who speaks and moves like a flapper and toward whom Pinky feels an instant attraction.
As the newcomers settle in, the locals react with trepidation and hostility. But where others see differences and danger, whispering of cults, Pinky “simply [sees] joy.” Among Mars and her friends, she is embraced in full. A community fight stirs, though, after the group erects a flag with Sweet Potato Grace’s likeness on it in tribute to Pinky—with a bright pride flag hanging right beneath.
Pinky is an irresistible heroine whose speech is peppered with charming neologisms. Remembering how a gay handyman was treated years ago, she avoids revealing that she is attracted to women, knowing that she’ll be met with pity or worse. But when she’s forced to choose between family tradition and a future with Mars, who sees her the way she sees herself “in dreams I hadn’t yet allowed myself to have,” she summons her inner strength, leading to a moving, surprising finale.
A Southern sapphic delight with fun speculative flourishes, The Barefoot Followers of Sweet Potato Grace is a triumphant novel in which a Texas woman finds freedom among outsiders.
Reviewed by
Michelle Anne Schingler
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