The Vixens

by Frank Yerby Book 2 in the The Foxes of Harrow series.

First published 1947

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3.7(169)

The Civil War has ended and Louisiana’s old plantation order is collapsing. Laird Fournois, a former Union soldier, returns to a New Orleans shaped by military defeat, emancipation and political upheaval. His marriage to the traumatised Sabrina and his attraction to Denise Lascals unfold amid a society in which former Confederates, freed Black citizens, northern newcomers and opportunists compete to define the postwar settlement.
Yerby makes Reconstruction more than background to the romantic plot. White Leagues, Klansmen and other organised opponents of Black freedom use terror to restore racial control, while the institutions and fortunes of the pre-war elite decay or adapt. As a sequel to The Foxes of Harrow, the novel shows the world built by plantation wealth surviving in memory and family ties even as emancipation forces a violent struggle over what will replace it.