Tragedy and resilience in Vanessa Miller's The Filling Station

In the early 20th century, the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was home to numerous Black-owned businesses and a thriving African American community. Then came the devastation beginning on the night of May 31, 1921, when white supremacist mobs – including local law enforcement – rampaged and burned the entire neighborhood and killed dozens of residents.

In a novel evoking both the worst and most generous impulses of human nature, Vanessa Miller shines a light on the aftermath of the Tulsa Race Massacre, laying bare the survivors’ long, hard-fought road to regain strength and faith.

Margaret and Evelyn Justice, daughters of a prosperous grocery store owner, are young women with dreams; Margaret plans to start teaching high school history, while Evie, a talented eighteen-year-old seamstress, wants to become a clothing designer. Left homeless after the fires, their beloved father missing, the sisters start walking out of town and land at the Threatt Filling Station (a real place on Route 66), which their Daddy had recognized as a safe haven for Black travelers.

The proprietors, Mr. Allen and Mrs. Alberta Threatt, take in Margaret and Evie. The sisters have always been close, but their lives soon begin diverging. Margaret determines to see Greenwood rise again, wanting to rebuild as soon as possible, while Evie feels too scared to ever return.

The roadblocks they encounter (insurance denials are just the beginning) are infuriating, though Margaret is bolstered by the support of the Threatts and a caring farmer, Elijah, who has great faith in God. Through Miller’s skillful writing, we see the filling station not only as a notable landmark, one deserving of all Americans’ attention, but as a superb metaphor for the people and places that replenish the spirit, if we have the courage to let them in. Definitely recommended.

I reviewed The Filling Station for May's Historical Novels Review; the novel was published by Thomas Nelson in March. This novel and its subject exemplify how the past is still very much with us.  A few days ago, on June 1, 2025, the mayor of Tulsa announced a plan of reparations, in the amount of $105 million, to go toward restoring the Greenwood neighborhood (which was later termed "Black Wall Street") and the devastating impact its destruction had, and continues to have, on residents. 

There are two living survivors of the massacre, aged 110 and 111, both of whom had made statements included within a report undertaken by the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and published this past January.  This report, which you can read in full online, concluded that the attack was "systematic and coordinated," contradicting the original, cursory 1921 report that called it uncontrolled mob violence. This report marked the first full accounting of the event by the DOJ, over a century after it happened.  

The Threatt Filling Station, Luther, OK
credit: Melodibit, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Threatt Filling Station in Luther, Oklahoma, is on the National Register of Historic Places and was also listed as one of America's 11 Most Endangered Places by the National Trust for Historical Preservation in 2021.  The family runs a foundation and website at https://threattfillingstation.org. 

An illustrious American family and its stain: Karen Joy Fowler's Booth

The 19th-century Booth family had once been known by the American public for something other than their second youngest son’s heinous act.

To give us back the historical context that's been eclipsed by his notoriety, Karen Joy Fowler purposefully avoids making John Wilkes, the assassin of President Lincoln, the center of attention in her profusely detailed work of biographical fiction. She does this by alternating the viewpoints among three of his siblings.

They are: oldest daughter Rosalie, a modest and dreamy teenager who settles into a future where her personal choices are erased; the adventurous Edwin, who rises to become a prominent actor but can’t seem to outrun his unstable father’s shadow; and Asia, a prickly, temperamental young woman and a loyal sister.

Beginning in 1822, their family life in a two-room log cabin, thirty miles northeast of Baltimore, is highly eventful. The father, Junius Booth, is a famous Shakespearean actor, a strict vegetarian who alternates between drunkenness and sobriety both on stage and off. Their mother Mary Ann, a former Drury Lane flower seller, is perpetually pregnant. They have ten children in all, including the four dead ones whose ghosts only Rosalie can sense.  Fowler shows how their birth order affects their outlook and upbringing.

There’s a good reason why the Booths’ cabin is so secluded, though the children don’t know it until much later. Still, they aren’t living alone in the woods, since their father employs a free Black man and leases other enslaved people to help with the farm. The fate of the Hall family – some enslaved, some free – intertwines with theirs.

Over time, we see firsthand how son John’s views on slavery diverge from that of his mother, who believes in the dignity of all people. A fortune-teller makes a chilling prophecy about John’s future, and it’s startling to realize that her words are repeated verbatim from history.

With its close documentation of the family’s day-to-day lives – the alliances, disruptions, scandals, and personal trials they face – the atmosphere is immersive. The pacing is steady, if plodding at times, and the characterizations of the individual Booths and America as a nation during a volatile era are standouts. I took a break midway through to read two other novels, but found myself drawn back to finish it, and am glad I did.

Booth was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons in 2022.  I'm slowly getting to reading long-outstanding books in my NetGalley queue, and this is one of them.