While Yerby implies [in Speak Now] that racism can be overcome by love, he stresses the point that it could not happen in the United States. (p. 155)

Love can triumph, according to the author, but only at the cost of alienation from a racist world. Despite the use of melodrama, sensationalism, romance, and stereotypes to excessive degrees, Yerby catches the revolutionary temper of the late sixties in both France and the United States…. Against this dynamic background Yerby enacts a passionate story that also competently reflects the racist attitudes of white people, especially in regard to miscegenation; but in typical Yerby fashion the romance and the melodrama are paramount. (p. 156)

[Yerby] indicates that under certain conditions interracial love can triumph over racism on an individual basis. White society in general, though, as depicted in [Speak Now] …, is impervious to the problems and the agony of Negroes. The love...