Ain’t No Grave
1913. The year heart-sick Max travels to Atlanta to find Ruby, his lost love and childhood friend. And the year New York Jew, Leo Frank, is charged with the murder of a child laborer at the National Pencil Factory. Max is Jewish and Ruby’s Black. Their reunion takes place just as Frank is arrested, a racially charged event that sparks an explosion of anti-Semitism across the city of Atlanta. Max lands a job as a cub working under the Atlanta Journal’s star reporter, Harold Ross, who would later found the New Yorker. Ruby’s worked at the National Pencil Factory since she was 13. Although reunited, the lovers’ road to happiness is in doubt after each becomes intimately involved in Frank’s trial, one that pits Blacks and Jews against each other. Both Max and Harold love Ruby and when she is called to testify by the prosecution, they work to protect her. She is required to protect herself. Together, the three bear witness from the murder of Mary Phagan, to the trial and lynching of Leo Frank and the founding of the ADL.

Praise for Ain’t No Grave

  • . . .Mary Glickman vividly captures milestones in the Leo Frank saga through sympathetic characters as real as the events surrounding them. She deftly intertwines Leo Frank's trial and lynching with the founding of the ADL, the rebirth of a moribund KKK, and an interracial love story. Meticulously researched, fast-paced, and thoroughly original, Ain't No Grave is a moving, satisfying read.”

    Sandra Brett
    Southeast ADL, Board Member

  • "With a new novel by Mary Glickman… the themes of anti-Black and antisemitic prejudice in the South reach a traumatic apex…. Glickman’s lilting prose and her depiction of rural Georgia life reminded me of… Where the Crawdads Sing.”

    Bernie Bellan
    Jewish Post News

  • Mary Glickman tells a powerful love story that was not supposed to happen. As a black man, born and raised in Alabama, married to a white woman, this story touched me in profound ways. My wife and I know what it’s like to have to deal with Max and Ruby’s issues. We have had a cross burned in front of our home. But love doesn’t care about these things. . .

    John Reynolds
    Author of ‘The Fight for Freedom; A Memoir of My Years in the Civil Rights Movement’

  • The outcome of the tragic story of Leo Frank and the very real flamboyant reporter, Harold Ross, makes for a setting handled with the touching sensibilities Glickman always displays in her writings about the South she loves.. Added to the passion of two young people in love amidst the turmoil of a real tragic event is the passion that Glickman brings to her writing. Love winning out over hate is a strong theme. It is what the world needs.

    PatZi (with a Z!)
    Creator & Host of the Syndicated Radio Program
    JOY ON PAPER

  • . . .From rural Georgia to the city of Atlanta, I felt like I was standing beside the characters witnessing the myriad of ways human beings find kindness in the face of hate. This beautifully written, historically important story will have you enthralled until the very last page."

    Roccie Hill
    Author of ‘The Blood of My Mother’

  • . . . I was alternately outraged, sad, wiser, hopeful, and yearning for more. A book for our times. A fabulous, significant, beautifully rendered addition to historical fiction.

    Elizabeth Millane
    Author of ‘Sixty Blades of Grass ‘

  • “Right from page one, you’ll want to follow Max and Ruby to the ends of the earth, come what may. This epic journey for love feels like an instant classic.”

    Steve Anderson
    Author of the ‘Kaspar Brothers’ series