His Father's House

By Daniel John Meador and Daniel Meador LLM

Meador's portrait of an American man on a long journey into his father's enigmatic past is engrossing and sensitively told. --Anne Rivers Siddons, Author of Colony

In a West German manor house, Robert Trepnitz Kirkman holds in his hand a long-lost secret a letter, a photograph, and his father's account of an incident in the Argonne forest during WWI. He anxiously waits for the opportunity to reveal his secret to the schloss's baroness. But intrigue runs thick through the walls of this cold grey house when he discovers she knows of the letter, the photograph, and much more. Set in the 1970s, His Father's House is a generational tale of
politics, religion, history, romance, and mystery that relates in time across two World Wars and to the American Civil War. An odyssey through the history and lands of East and West Germany, its central character, an American law professor, becomes entangled in the affairs of a once powerful family. Thrust into this bizarre drama, he joins in the family's struggle to come together over religious, political, and emotional barriers.
His obsession with the family's history grows as he begins to see the German schloss in the same light as his own family's antebellum plantation. Both with homes ravaged by war, power taken from their hands, and bedeviled by their own past, these two families and their homelands illustrate the hazards and denouement of the powerful falling from grace.
Through the characters of Kirkman and the von Egloffsberg family, the story suggests a unique relationship between Germany and the American South. From relics found in his deceased father's house, Rob is linked to his father's experiences through his encounters with the aristocratic German family caught in the twentieth-century catastrophes of their fragmented world.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565540328
• ISBN13: 9781565540323
• Release Date: May 1994
• Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 7.4" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

Great Buy in Book!

The book was entirely as represented. No problems with transaction. Highly recommend when you want a book at a cheap price.

AN INTRIGUING HISTORICAL PUZZLE

Looking through a scarred footlocker that belonged to his late father, law professor Robert Kirman finds a photograph of an attractive young woman and two small children. There is also a letter, written on fragile stationery headed by the name Martina Baroness von Egloffsberg. Intrigued by what he has found, Kirkman leaves Alabama for Communist East Germany in order to piece together this historical puzzle. The woman who wrote the letter is now an elderly baroness, a member of an aristocratic once powerful German family. In addition to finding the woman, Kirkman finds mystery, romance, and political intrigue. The reader finds a compelling story of two families and their respective countries. Currently a University of Virginia law professor, D. J. Meador once served an as assistant general in the U.S. Department of Justice. Blind himself, Meador brings special awareness to Wolfgang, the blind son of the baroness. - Gail Cooke

A wonderful, engaging, mezmerizing work.

This is one of the best books I've ever read, fiction or nonfiction. In fact, it captures the best of both worlds in a way that neither category can match alone.As with most first-time fiction authors, the work is highly autobiographical. I had Mr. Meador for two classes plus a research project in law school, and there is a lot of him here. Mr. Meador is a genteel, intellectually honest and capable person, and all of those qualities permeate the book.He tells a compelling story containing many layers. If you have an interest in history, and if you enjoy reading about a good spiritual journey, then you will love this book. I will not reveal the plot, but there are segments where the protagonist is (perhaps) dreaming that will mezmerize you.To close, this is a great book by a great man. Read it.