Bent but Not Broken 

By Mary Monroe 

Dafina, 2025 

Paperback: $28.00 

Genre: Historical Fiction 

Reviewed by Charlotte C. Teague 

Cover of BENT BUT NOT BROKEN. Image of a Black woman in a blue dress facing a window with green curtains.

With Bent but Not Broken, New York Times bestselling author Mary Monroe has produced another intriguing work of fiction set in rural Alabama in the early 1900s. Tackling themes of domestic violence, racism, infidelity, and religious hypocrisy, Monroe crafts a plot full of deception, tragedy, and murder against a backdrop of the Great Depression. This is Monroe’s fifth book in the Lexington, Alabama Novel series. Her last novel, Double Lives, was also set in this close-knit rural town. 

Surrounded by Alabama’s red clay hills, the story begins with a young Naomi Simmons feeling pressured to get married and move out of her widowed father’s home to start a life of her own. Her father wants to marry Madeline “Maddy” Upshaw, a widow he has been visiting for ten years. Since her mother died during her birth, and she is the last of eight children at home, Naomi wants her father to have some happiness before he dies, so she accepts the marriage proposal of Jacob Purcell, an older man whom she largely marries because she believes that he will be a good provider. However, Jacob turns out to be a cruel womanizer, and Naomi is caught in an abusive marriage after her father dies and her siblings move away from Lexington. Then, to make matters worse, she has a daughter, Ethel Mae, who turns out to be a promiscuous teen, which is a recipe for disaster in the segregated South. Naomi knows that the behavior could result in much more than an unwanted pregnancy for her daughter. Monroe’s heroine is shouldering the weight of the world, and she finds herself doing what she vowed that she would never do: she has an extramarital affair.  

In a rare twist of fate, Naomi meets Homer Clark at Carson Lake. He becomes a haven for Naomi, who believes she has finally found her prince charming and happiness. She plans to divorce Jacob and marry Homer, but things do not work as planned when Jacob suffers a stroke that leaves him paralyzed from the neck down. Because Naomi really is a good and committed woman at heart, she vows to stay and care for him. Homer is not understanding, and as the old southern adage goes, “The same thing that makes you laugh will make you cry.” Monroe’s central figure finds herself in a dreadful situation that threatens to ruin her life and the lives of her loved ones. She is caught up in a scandal characterized by threats and stalking, and her world is shattered to pieces after she ignores all the red flags in her view. The only way that Naomi can withstand her agonizing predicament and “bend but not break” is because of friends Martha Lou, Lula, and Maisie. They offer her kindness from the heart, and what is from the heart reaches the heart in this work. Indeed, Monroe is known for shaping real-life characters and descriptive plots, and both are on display in her newest novel. 

Monroe also skillfully gives readers gems highlighting Alabama’s culture and the history of the United States. The language of southern food is inviting. Because Naomi works as a domestic cook, the text regularly describes breakfasts of bacon, eggs, grits, homemade biscuits, buttermilk, and ham, and dinners of catfish and hush puppies, fried chicken, yams, black eyed peas, collard greens, and cornbread with hints of pig ears and hog head cheese. Likewise, mentions of World War I, Lincoln’s assignation, Roosevelt’s presidency, Jim Crow laws, Charles Dicken’s literature, and Bessie Smith’s songs help to add to the authenticity of this historical work of fiction by celebrated Alabama author Mary Monroe. 

She wraps the devastation of secrets into a plot full of desperation and hopelessness, which is often the reality for those who suffer from domestic violence, infidelity, and other painful situations. However, as Monroe shows, friendship and faith can profoundly affect a person’s life, and there is indeed hope if one is willing to be patient and wait for the rainbow after the storm.   

Charlotte C. Teague is associate professor of English at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (AAMU) where she specializes in Professional Writing (Creative, Media, & Technical), Black Women Writers, and Protest Literature.