New York: Pyramidd Books, (1967). Bennett's satirical - and sometimes raw - first novel, which opens in 1919 in the town of Burnside, Virginia, "a mostly black town with deep internal divisions. The story opens in 1919 as Janus Manning rescues Neva Stapleton from the orphanage by taking her as his bride. Both characters are the product of bi-racial parents and, by virtue of the lightness of their skin, place themselves above their darker skinned neighbors in town. . Bennett shows how the effects of racism have infiltrated the community, creating an atmosphere of systemic self-loathing where the town's inhabitants are 'just as prejudiced against black people as some of you white people are.' Internalized hatred is passed on through the generations, creating a powderkeg of hostility that literally explodes at the end of the novel." (Randall Heath) Although the cover of this paperback edition calls it a "sexually frank novel that tells the shocking truth about a Negro Peyton Place" it also - more accurately perhaps - compares Bennett to James Baldwin. 314 pp plus a list of characters arranged by the color of their skin. Cover photograph by Morgan Kane.