WHEN IT RAINS is a 75,000-word novel set in rural west Texas in the 1950s, a time of perceived innocence before the racial turmoil of the 1960s. That innocence is about to be shattered not only for the nation but for Caroline Campbell as well. It begins for Caroline when she enters The New York Store in a small town near her family’s farm. Her mother has long forbidden her to enter the store because it is owned by a Jew. Not only does she meet Gershom Rabinowitz, the owner, who challenges her thinking, but she meets Pearlie, a Black girl, and Hal, a newcomer to the town. Caroline is fascinated by Pearlie because she has never really known a Black person before, and Hal is fascinated by Caroline. All innocence is shattered for each of them after Pearlie is violently raped and her rapist is murdered. No one dares reveal the truth about what really happened. The story ends sixty years later when Caroline confesses she murdered the rapist in an attempt to protect Pearlie.