Washed in the blood : a novel / Lisa Alther.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alther, Lisa.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Appalachians (People)--Fiction.

Appalachians (People).

Families--Fiction.

Families.

Appalachian Region--Fiction.

Appalachian Region.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (467 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Macon, GA : Mercer University Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This unique three-part novel assumes that, regardless of what Americans learn in school, the Southeast was not a barren wilderness when the English arrived at Jamestown. It was full of Native Americans and of other Europeans who were there for various reasons. Based on extensive research into the racial mixing that occurred in the early years of southeastern settlement, this provocative multi-generation story shows that people did not simply vanish, but that many were absorbed into the new communities that gradually formed throughout the southeast, becoming ¿white¿ whenever their complexions allowed. The inability to accept their true heritages illustrates the high price many of these people paid for their way of life. Diego Martin arrives in 1567 in the American Southeast¿the region the Spaniards call La Florida¿as a hog drover with a Spanish exploring party. The leader of the expedition turns against him and abandons him to the wilderness, where friendly natives rescue him. Daniel Hunter, a Quaker from Philadelphia, sets up a school among these ¿disadvantaged¿ mountain people and falls in love with a Martin daughter. Later, Daniel¿s descendants are living in the same town, though with little awareness of their ancestral past. The Martin family has split in two, the merchants in town denying any relationship to their racially mixed cousins on Mulatto Bald. A young woman from town, Galicia, falls in love with a young man from the bald, Will, not realizing that he is her cousin. They marry, have a daughter, and move to a new industrial center, becoming prominent citizens. When Will¿s son from a teenage liaison appears at his door, he invites him in, unwittingly setting the stage for a forbidden love between his unacknowledged son and his cherished daughter, neither of whom realizes that they are half-siblings. This is a novel you will not be able to put down without thinking and wondering ¿where will it take me next.¿

Contents:

Cover

Copyright

PART I THE SWINE KING: A. D. 1567

San Jorge

Landfall

Santo Domingo

Santa Elena

Orista

Cofitachequi

Joara

Cauchi

Land of the Lost

The Cave

PART II THE SQUABBLE STATE

The Five-Chicken Baby: 1818

Couchtown: August 1837

The Shenandoah: October 1837

Mulatto Bald: October 1837

Baptism by Fire: November 1837

The Frost Moon: December 1837

Seedbeds: April 1838

Soldiers Joy: June 1838

The Wilderness Road: July 1838

Squatters: October 1838

PART III PASSING FANCY

The Ringer: August 1909

Leesville: October 1909

Palestine: February 1911

Hijacked Happiness: March 1911

Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: April 1911

Homecoming: December 1911

Mongrels: August 1913

A Roll of the Dice: November 1913

The Perils of Pauline: March 1914

Holston: May 1914

Half- Breeds: 1920

Home to Roost: 1927

Mountain Meadows: 1930

The Plantation Ball: 1930

Acknowledgments.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

ISBN:

0-88146-345-0

OCLC:

787846144