Child of the South

By Joanna Catherine Scott

Book Overview

From the award-winning author of The Road from Chapel Hill , a story of loyalty, duty, and love in the days following the Civil War. Returning to characters introduced in her previous novel, acclaimed author Joanna Catherine Scott explores the terrain of a devastated South, where the war is over-but conflict lives on. Having endured years of hardship, Eugenia Mae Spotswood returns to Wilmington to find out who her mother is, only to be faced with racism and hatred...until she is befriended by the most powerful Negro leader in the state Senate. Also driven forward are the strong-minded ex-slave Tom and his crippled former enemy Clyde Bricket. Tom spent the last years of the war working for the Union as a spy. Now, Clyde watches as his family farm slowly dies. Only if they work together can they survive...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B005HKQLE2
• ISBN13: 9780425226025
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 7.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

deep look at the aftermath of the Civil War

With the Civil War over, half-breed Eugenia May Spotswood returns home searching for family especially the one her mother to belong to, but mostly finding hate between her two worlds of black and white. One noted exception is a black North Carolina senator who befriends Eugenia May giving her powerful backing. A former slave Tom served as a spy for the Union while Clyde Bricket fought for the Confederacy. They come home to North Carolina where they meet in poverty as neither has much of anything except Tom is free and Clyde is crippled. If they can get past their prejudice and forge a team, they can rebuild their homes; separately neither can stand up to those who want the new South to remain devastated. The sequel to THE ROAD FROM CHAPEL HILL (not read by me) is a profound look at the South struggling to recover from the ravages of the Civil War, mostly fought below the Mason-Dixon Line. The characters are fully developed so that the good, the bad, and the ugly compete for how the New South will be shaped. With more subplots than above that merge into a deep look at the aftermath of the Civil War, Joanna Catherine Scott provides a powerful historical. Harriet Klausner

A book for our times

Although it stands on its own, Child of the South is a sequel to Scott's acclaimed The Road to Chapel Hill. It does not disappoint. Suspense and romance play out on the stage of post-Civil War North Carolina, hopes raised only to be dashed and raised again. There is much engrossing history here, seen through the eyes of two compelling characters: Tom (in third person) and Eugenia Mae(in first person), but never losing the luminous poetic quality for which Scott's prose is known.