Two sisters grapple with the realities of life in the Jim Crow South in Wanda M. Morris’ compelling, emotionally resonant thriller, ANYWHERE YOU RUN. It’s 1964, and 21-year-old Violet Richards is in serious trouble. She has killed Huxley Broadus, the white man who raped her. Now she needs to get away from Jackson, Mississippi --- the sooner, the better. Meanwhile, her sensible sister Marigold, who dreams of becoming a lawyer, is pregnant by a man who wants nothing to do with her or her baby.

Violet knows what will happen if police link a Black woman to the death of a white man, even if she killed him in self-defense. So when Dewey Leonard offers her a ticket out of town, she grabs it. Never mind that Violet isn’t “no ways close to being in love” with Dewey, who also happens to be the son of the head of the Mississippi Citizens Council (aka “the respectable face of the Ku Klux Klan”). It’s a chance to leave “Jackson and all the ghosts I created.” But paranoia gets the best of Violet. She ditches Dewey in Georgia and ends up hiding out in the small town of Chillicothe.

"The world of the Jim Crow South comes to life with chilling clarity in Morris’ well-researched novel.... Eventually, Violet, Marigold and Mercer’s paths converge as ANYWHERE YOU RUN reaches its heartbreaking and unexpected climax."

Back in Jackson, Marigold starts to worry that the police will pin Huxley’s death on her in her sister’s absence. Between her fear that she’s about to be arrested (or worse) and the looming reality of life as a single mother, she makes a choice. Marigold accepts a proposal from the shiftless Roger, who has no idea that his soon-to-be wife is pregnant with another man’s child. Together, they head north to Cleveland, which they hope will offer more opportunities and freedom than they can find in the deep South. “Maybe there was a better life for me and this baby up in Ohio,” a desperate Marigold thinks.

In Chillicothe, Violet --- now going by Vera --- navigates a different set of challenges. It’s hard to disappear in a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Still, she manages to carve out the beginnings of a new life for herself. But Dewey isn’t about to let Violet go that easily, especially given that she unwittingly has come into possession of a piece of evidence that links him to the murder of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County. (That crime is based on the real-life murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.) He turns to Mercer Buggs, a lower-class white man with a sick son, to hunt her down.

ANYWHERE YOU RUN is told from the alternating perspectives of Violet, Marigold and Mercer (the first two in the first person, the latter in the third). In her sophomore novel (after 2021’s ALL HER LITTLE SECRETS), Morris carefully sketches the loving yet complicated relationship between the two sisters. Both are haunted by past traumas, including the deaths of their parents and an older sister named Rose. Their lives are also constrained by the hard facts of racism and segregation, as well as the roles they feel forced to play by others. As Violet puts it, people see her as “a harlot’s high heel,” while Marigold is “a sturdy Oxford.”

Mercer easily could have been a one-note villain, but Morris gives him depth and complexity. He lacks the power of men like Dewey and his father (who don’t hesitate to take advantage of his financially precarious position), but he still benefits from his status as a white man. Secondary characters add richness to the story, such as Marigold’s lively sister-in-law Lurlene, a nightclub singer, or the repulsive Bettyjean Coogler, who hires Violet to work as a maid.

The world of the Jim Crow South comes to life with chilling clarity in Morris’ well-researched novel. The tensions of Freedom Summer form the backdrop. (Marigold works for the Mississippi Summer Project.) And she is scrupulous in highlighting the everyday indignations that the book’s Black characters must endure. In one small but telling moment, Marigold is astonished when she realizes that she can get a library card in Cleveland. In Jackson, Blacks “were only allowed to check out books if they were doing so for a white person.”

Eventually, Violet, Marigold and Mercer’s paths converge as ANYWHERE YOU RUN reaches its heartbreaking and unexpected climax. Sadly, neither Violet nor Marigold can fully escape the violent realities of the world in which they live. But despite the sometimes grim subject matter, this is a story that is infused with hope and the belief that a better future is possible, despite the odds. As one character notes toward the book’s end, the silver lining of losing everything is that it gives you “an opportunity to find something new.”