Southern Bookman

LSU historian Robert Mann's "Kingfish U" tells engrossing story of Huey Long's crushing love for LSU

LSU's band, football team and academic prestige rose under Huey Long's autocratic control of Louisiana during the dark years of the Depression.

After Long's assassination in 1935, the "Ole War Skule's" golden era crashed in scandal, leading to the imprisonment of LSU President James Monroe Smith and other university officials for a range of fraudulent schemes.

The wide-ranging federal and state investigations also led to the conviction of Gov. Richard Leche, for whom the university's law school had been named. His name was abruptly removed from the school's monumental building.

Long as governor and U.S. senator who still controlled the state embraced LSU like a smothering sugar daddy. He lavished money on school buildings, launched a medical school, and outrageously championed the school's band and football team.

LSU professor and noted historian Robert Mann entertainingly tells the story of Long and his proudest achievement in "Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU," published by LSU Press.

An outlandish political showman, Long took trainloads of LSU students to football games in Nashville and Houston, leading the band on parades through the cities' downtowns. He also enjoyed giving pep talks to the football team, although Coach Biff Jones banned "the Kingfish" from the locker room before Long fired the former Army officer.

Rapidly increasing its student body and constructing new buildings after a move from downtown Baton Rouge to a bucolic new campus that had once been a plantation on the Mississippi River, LSU attracted nationally recognized professors, most prominently Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks, editors of the university's prestigious and ground=breaking Southern Review.

As Mann relates, Long generally kept his hands off academic matters. But he brought his beloved university national comdemnation for attempting to censor the Daily Reveille, the school's student newspaper, after it published a letter criticizing his iron-fisted control of the LSU Board of Supervisors.

Smith's expulsion of seven Reveille journalists brought an investigation by the Southern Association of  Colleges and Secondary Schools. The organization placed LSU on probation, then dropped its investigation when the school affirmed its commitment to academic independence following Long's death.

But Long's meddling with the LSU Law School led to censure by the Association of American Law Schools, a minor part of a ballooning scandal that engulfed the university and Long's machine following his assassination in a hallway of his soaring state Capitol in downtown Baton Rouge.

Mann gives a complete account of the scandals, especially the involvement of Leche, Smith and a number of LSU officials who used LSU material and state funds for personal projects.

Smith, who led the university's flourishing during the Depression and originated the Southern Review, ended up serving six years in the state penitentiary at Angola.

Long, one of the most divisive leaders in American history, gave his poverty-stricken state modern roads, schools and hospitals and propelled a small state university to national prominence.

Mocked by national writers for his clownish behavior and accumulation of power, Long before his death gained a national following for his "share our wealth" programs, which still appear radical.

Mann gives a balanced picture of a politician beloved by Louisiana's long-exploited poor. As Mann details, blacks gained little from his programs.

The book contains wonderful vintage photographs of Long, decked out in three-piece suits and fedoras, acting as chief cheerleader. He's shown with the band and students, or huddling with cronies. One picture shows Smith with several cows; rural students during the Depression could pay for their tuition with livestock or crops.

While Mann praises Long's accomplishments, he presents a disturbing picture of Long's schemes to acquire more power.

Long's flamboyant career was in the end tragic, as Robert Penn Warren mined in his classic novel"All the King's Men."

Warren found in Baton Rouge "a world of a sick yearning for elegance."

Louisiana's dreams of greatness come mixed with corruption and buffoonery.

 

 

 

 

Julian Jackson's "France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Petain" examines democratic perils

In one of France's worst moments, World War I hero Philippe Petain shook hands with German dictator Adolph Hitler on Oct. 24, 1940.

Addressing the French nation a few days later, Marshal Petain exclaimed "I enter today down the road of collaboration."

Petain, who had witnessed the surrender of Germany to end World War I, was chosen by Hitler's Nazi regime to lead France's puppet Vichy government, which ostensibly ruled a part of France not occupied by the Germans.

After Hitler's downfall and the end of World War II, liberated France under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle tried the 89-year-old Petain and other Vichy collaborators on charges of treason.

British historian Julian Jackson's critically acclaimed "France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Petain" examines the trial, in which Petain was sentenced to death. De Gaulle, his former close friend, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment, and Petain was held prisoner on a small island, where he died in 1951.

As the title indicates, Jackson's book explores how Petain's collaboration with Germany implicated the entire country. After the war's end, France's resistance movement began a wave of harsh punishment for collaborators, including killings.

Petain claimed that he was a "shield" for France, saving it from the more extreme Nazi occupation suffered by Poland and other countries.

The Vichy regime repealed France's liberal laws, restoring a pro-Catholic conservatism. France's right-wing political groups until recently extolled Petain as a national hero.

Under Petain, French Jewish citizens were captured and sent to Nazi camps, although at a lower percentage than in other countries, likely because of the success of the resistance movement in protecting Jews. Jackson documents that the Vichy government independently acted against Jewish citizens as much as from German coercion.

Jackson has written a series of definitive histories of France's World War II experience and its aftermath, including a highly praised biography of de Gaulle ,who led France after World War II and returned to power as head of the Fifth Republic from the late 1950s through 1969.

"France on Trial," published by Harvard University Press in August, is a major work that holds deep lessons for the United States and its imperiled democracy.

LSU professor Robert Mann resigns after right-wing agitator Jeff Landry elected as Louisiana's governor

LSU journalism professor Robert Mann will resign after the election of right-wing firebrand Jeff Landry as Louisiana's governor.

“My reasons are simple,” Mann said in a Sunday tweet. “The person who will be governor in January has already asked LSU to fire me. And I have no confidence the leadership of this university would protect the Manship School against a governor’s efforts to punish me and other faculty members.”

A professor at LSU's Manship School of Mass Communications for 18 years, Mann is an outspoken critic of the state's support for football and other sports to the detriment of academics.

Mann, who has previously clashed with Louisiana's attorney general, said he made the decision in anticipation that Landry will seek his removal. In response, the school's administration issued a statement asserting its support of freedom of speech and academic independence.

The tenured holder of the Manship Chair in Journalism, Mann said that he took the action because of his deep love for the university and that he wanted to spare the school and faculty members from possible political retribution.

Endorsed by former President Donald Trump, Landry won the governorship Saturday, surprising political observers by receiving 52 percent of the vote in the state's "jungle primary" to avoid a runoff.

As the state's attorney general for two terms, Landry fought Covid vaccine mandates, supported the state's harsh anti-abortion legislation and bans against gender care for trans youth, and joined a lawsuit in support of Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. He frequently fought Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who is stepping down after eight years because of the state's term limit.

The professor battled Landry in December 2021 when Mann sponsored a resolution before the LSU faculty Senate calling for the university to follow Covid mandates for the testing of students.

An incensed Landry dispatched Assistant Attorney General Lauryn Sudduth to the governing body to read a letter opposing the mandates.

When Mann in a Twitter tweet assailed Landry for sending "a flunky" to the school, Landry demanded that LSU President William F. Tate IV take punitive action against Mann.

Tate relatedly issued a statement supporting Mann and academic freedom, but Mann considered it tentative, faulting Tate for not calling him directly to assure him that the administration "had his back."

Before coming to LSU, Mann served as an aide to Sens. John Breaux and Russell Long and Gov. Kathleen Blanco. A former reporter, Mann is a noted historian and political scientist who has written several well-regarded books.

He understands well the state's history of governors meddling with the university. Last year, LSU Press published Mann's "Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU," which disclosed how Long sought to control the university and used the football team and band for his political advantage

As publisher of the Baton Rouge State Times and Morning Advocate, the Manship family opposed Long's regime, winning an important First Amendment ruling against the Kingfish in the U.S. Supreme Court. The benefactors of the LSU journalism school also stood out in the South for their support of integration.

Mann, who as a columnist for the then Times Picayune blasted former Gov. Bobby Jindal for severely cutting LSU's funding and who recently assailed the state's Legislature for refusing to fund a sorely needed new library, vows to keep speaking out when he leaves the university.

Louisiana needs his voice as Landry plans to turn the state into an even more repressive right-wing bastion.

 

 

Acclaimed historian Peter Brown's "Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History" generates intellectual excitement

Historian Peter Brown's joy at intellectual discovery glows through "Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History."

Brown, Rollins Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University, pioneered a new field of historical study, reconstructing the strange world of "late antiquity" through ground-breaking books that discovered dynamic social change and cultural creativity in the era from 200-700 A.D. rather than civilization's collapse.

While Brown in his autobiography published by Princeton University Press looks back on his intellectual adventures and collaborations with esteemed colleagues, he also expresses delight at simple pleasures: beer and pizza, meals in Oxford dining rooms, Pacific sunsets.

Along with "journeys of the mind," he gives exciting accounts of trips to Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Rome and Venice. As a child, he made frequent sojourns to Sudan, where his father was a railroad engineer for the colonial-era British government.

He recalls his excitement at perusing obscure books and documents found on dusty library shelves. To aid his research, he learns a variety of languages, from German to Arabic.

An Irish native who grew up in a Protestant family, Brown gained entry to Oxford, where he won an All Souls Fellowship and began his academic career. He later held professorships at The University of London's Royal Holloway College and the University of California at Berkeley before coming to Princeton in 1983.

Brown received renown for his groundbreaking biography of St. Augustine and the book "The World of Late Antiquity." His subsequent books on holy men and the cult of sexual renunciation during the era further revolutionized the field of classical research. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982.

In clear language free of academic jargon, Brown brings his readers along on his thrilling journeys.

 

Discovery of old books recalls vanished era of multiple Atlanta bookstores

In a sudden urge to "declutter," I cleaned out a box full of papers and found some long-forgotten books.

A few were once heralded: Frank Kermode's "The Uses of Error," Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism," Cynthia Ozick's "Metaphor & Memory," Amy Clampitt's "What the Light Was Like" and a one-volume version of Douglas Southall Freeman's "Washington," abridged by Richard Harwell.

 Kermode's collection of essays and Clampitt's poems I vaguely remembered reading. I think I had made a start on the others.

Rereading Kermode's collection, I was intrigued to find the late critic's review of Princeton professor Peter Brown's lauded biography of St. Augustine, which began a re-evaluation of "late antiquity" after the fall of the Western Roman empire.

Brown in his St. Augustine biography and subsequent books revealed that the period long derided as "the dark ages" was  in reality a time of creativity and dynamic cultural change, especially in the eastern Roman empire, which lasted for centuries. Brown also made ground-breaking discoveries about Mideastern empires and the rise of Islam.

As the result of a laudatory review by the Washington Post's Michael Dirda, I'm reading Brown's autobiography, "Journeys of the Mind," which tells of his rise from a modest Irish childhood to a career as a world-renowned scholar.

In engaging un-academic language, Brown recalls his Oxford education, his joy at intellectual discovery, his travels to Iran and other parts of the Mideast, and his collaboration with other scholars.

Rediscovering the old books, I tried to remember where I might have acquired them, raising memories of long-gone Atlanta bookstores where I spent many hours through the years.

I remembered the first Borders Bookstore in a Roswell Road strip shopping center, before the business moved to a bigger space on Peachtree Road. Oxford Books was another shrine for booklovers that vanished, the victim of over-expansion. Phipps Plaza had a bookstore whose name I can no longer remember. In my years working at the AJC, I often visited a long-gone bookstore on the corner of Peacthree and Marietta streets.

Barnes & Noble and a few independent stores have survived the competition with Amazon and the decline in reading. For a brief moment, Atlanta was a paradise for book-lovers.

 

Emily Wilson's "Iliad" translation draws heightened anticipation

Emily Wilson's translation of  Homer's "The Iliad" is stirring excitement over its Sept. 26 publication.

The Penn professor's "The Odyssey" received critical acclaim in  2017 for its fresh rendering of the ancient poet's epic. Wilson, the first woman to translate Homer's work, updated the poem's language while employing the traditional English iambic pentameter form. 

Along with the praise, some purists found fault with Wilson's work, saying she strayed too far from Homer's language.

Wilson's "Iliad" was frequently mentioned by Times Literary Supplement contributors who in the literary journal's current issue give their summer reading plans. Famed classics expert Mary Beard is one of the worthies who express enthusiasm about reading Wilson's new work a few months early.

The New York Times Book Review in Sunday's special section on literary translations also gave attention to Wilson's new translation.

Wilson presented her rendition of a passage from "The Iliad"  along with the same lines translated by the Elizabethan poet George Chapman and Victorian writer Samuel Butler's prose version. 

The translations give variations on the Trojan hero Hector's poignant farewell to his wife, Andromache, before his fatal confrontation with the Greek hero Achilles, the epic's climax.

In her introduction, Wilson notes the frequency of English translations of Homer and how they reflect changes in English literature. Chapman's Homer translation, praised by Keats in a famous poem, was the first in English.

Chapman's lines add words not found in Homer, while Butler's work offers the poignance of a Victorian novel. Wilson's less melodramatic version strikes me as  overly contrived.

Wilson's "The Iliad" likely will raise the same heated debate as her "The Odyssey." She once again makes the ancient poet a modern literary sensation.

 

 

 

Author Patrick Radden Keefe inspires full crowd at Atlanta History Center

A late spring pop-up thunderstorm briefly knocked out the power and cable TV Tuesday evening before I headed to the Atlanta History Center to hear author Patrick Radden Keefe.

The rain had subsided to a sprinkle when I drove into the already packed parking lot. Keefe, the New Yorker writer and author of "Say Nothing: A True History of Murder and Mystery in Northern Ireland" and "Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty," was making his first trip to Atlanta.

Keefe's "Say Nothing" was one of the best books I'd read in the last few years, registering the wasted lives and senseless tragedy of Northern Ireland's Catholic-Protestant conflict.

The book's finely wrought writing, complex narrative and kaleidoscopic characters mixed deeply researched history and the suspense of a murder mystery, building to an explosive conclusion. 

When I saw the announcement of Keefe's appearance on the History Center's web site, I eagerly purchased a ticket. At first discouraged by the storm, I resolutely ventured forth, not dissuaded by malfunctioning traffic lights and rush hour traffic.

A crowd of mostly older readers with white hair and convivial, upper-class manners filled the lobby, sipping wine and chatting about recent trips.

In the already half-filled auditorium, retirees joked about difficulties with hips and knees and not quite knowing  how to turn off their I-phones.

Waiting for Keefe to enter the stage with interviewer Virginia Prescott, an Atlanta public broadcasting veteran now involved with a podcast startup, I reflected that the crowd's age didn't bode well for the future of publications like the New Yorker and serious books like those Keefe writes. Then I was struck by the realization that I too was old.

My surgically repaired knee stiffening, I was happy to see a few younger people arrive. The 47-year-old Keefe when he took his chair on the stage besides Prescott peered out at an appreciative crowd, many of whom like me began reading the New Yorker in the glory days of William Shawn.

Keefe came to Atlanta as part of a book tour for his latest book, "Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks," a collection of his New Yorker articles. The book's paperback edition had just been published that day.

Entertainingly responding to Prescott's probing yet cordial questions, Keefe gave a full account of his reporting techniques and encounters with subjects such as the late food celebrity Anthony Bourdain. He poignantly recalled sharing memorable meals with Bourdain, who committed suicide despite his success as world-renowned gourmet.

Several audience members asked questions about "Say Nothing," showing they were as enthralled with the book as I had been. In response to one question, Keefe said he believes Northern Ireland will unite one day with the Irish Republic.

Keeve also gave valuable insights into his writing and interviewing techniques. I hoped that a few students were there to hear his reflections.

Inspired by Keefe's commitment to truth and careful language, I headed home, surprised that sunlight remained and glad that the storms had passed away. As dusk deepened, I hoped for a renewal of the values Keefe expresses so well.

 

 

 

 

United Talent Agency's arts exhibit space elevates Atlanta's cultural scene

Atlanta's receiving a burst of attention as a fine-arts center.

The United Talent Agency, which represents actors, comedians, screenwriters, musicians and artists, recently opened a fine arts exhibit space at its Atlanta office in Midtown.

That's a significant boost for the Atlanta arts scene. The Atlanta gallery is only UTA's second, following an earlier one in Beverly Hills.

The new gallery gives Atlanta artists fresh hopes that they no longer have to go elsewhere to find success.

Yet an article Wednesday in The New York Times Arts section raised doubts about whether the UTA space will benefit Atlanta and Southern artists, or mainly represent those with already established international reputations in New York or Los Angeles.

Writer Tariro Mzezewa's feature titled "Can a Global Talent Agency Make Atlanta an Arts Destination" expressed local arts boosters' expectations that regional artists will find the UTA a nurturing home. 

Displaying a regional awareness, the new gallery opened with Atlanta artist and musician Lonnie Holley's exhibit "The Eyes Were Always on Us," which continues through the end of April.

The black Birmingham native's works examine racial violence in the South, the struggle for civil rights and the perseverance of black culture.

While the new gallery should aspire to encourage regional talent, a mixture of international exhibitions will boost Atlanta's global stature, moving away from from the city's long-established provincialism. As a major international presence, the UTA center can accomplish multiple objectives.

UTA's arts gallery is another jewel for Atlanta's Peachtree cultural corridor, encompassing the Woodruff Arts Center, the Museum of Design Atlanta and the Peachtree branch of the Fulton County Library.

The Fox Theater rises a few blocks south, near the Atlanta History Center's Margaret Mitchell House, which has not yet reopened after shutting down during the Covid epidemic.

While Atlanta's fine arts and entertainment scenes flourish, the city's theater community suffers from declining audiences and funding.

As the city's movie lovers welcomed the imminent reopening of the Tara Theater, the Lyric Theater announced its closure after 42 seasons.

The Lyric's shutdown mobilized the Atlanta theater community, which issued an emergency letter calling for more financial support from corporations, business leaders and local and state government.

Atlanta's theaters are spread across the metro area. The failure of a campaign to build a grand opera house at the Woodruff Arts Center led to the Atlanta Opera Company joining the Braves in moving to Cobb County. The Atlanta Ballet Company also performs outside the city.

While suburban theaters have done admirable work through the years, Midtown's art district needs more live theater along with the Woodruff's Alliance and the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern.

A new professional company on Peachtree would showcase the original work of regional playwrights, as well as perform worthy plays from elsewhere. Midtown also needs a new music venue for classical, operatic and popular performances

The UTA gallery is only one step in Atlanta fulfilling its artistic dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Gates, Thomas Friedman acclaim Artificial Intelligence's Brave New World

I am not a robot.

ChatGPT is not writing this piece.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and billionaire Bill Gates are in a frenzy over Artificial Intelligence, claiming it's as revolutionary as the printing press, the Internet and the steam engine.

The new Microsoft GPT-4 bot developed by OpenAI can whip out sonnets and abecedarian verse within seconds, according to Friedman's column this week.

Along with composing poems in which each line begins with a different letter of the alphabet, GPT-4 can almost instantaneously do translations in different languages, Friedman marveled.

I'm sure GPT-4 will soon be turning out Tom Friedman columns indistinguishable from the real thing.

Gates in his blog says AI will free humans from mundane tasks and allow us "to do things that software never will - teaching, caring for patients and supporting the elderly," according to the Wall Street Journal.

Why Artificial Intelligence can't teach and care for patients was not explained.

Against corporate opposition, office workers are using OpenAI's ChatGPT to write emails, memos and messages, according to a Wall Street Journal article. The workers say it improves productivity.

Or Artificial Intelligence could be nothing more than Quiet Quitting, last year's trend.

Perhaps Friedman and Gates are right, and AI will bring bring a new golden era of human development.

I remain skeptical, and plan to ignore Artificial Intelligence as much as possible, hoping it'll be destroyed all together.

Best wishes to Generation Z as they welcome the new age, but I'm too old for a little AI buddy.

For me, Shakespeare's sonnets will never by supplanted by something called GPT-4.

 

 

 

David Milch's "Life's Work" tells redemptive story of self-destruction, Hollywood fame

Only David Milch could have transformed St. Paul and the cross into Deadwood and the South Dakota gold rush.

Milch, famed TV producer and writer, details that shift in his entertaining, self-absorbed memoir "Life's Work."

Although Milch finished the book with the aid of his daughters while battling the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease, "Life's Work" gives a full account of his troubled childhood, heroin and gambling addiction, Yale education and  unlikely TV success.

The change from Christianity and the Roman Empire to gold and the American West is not that surprising coming from a writer who taught a course at Yale titled "Strategies of Indirection in Fiction."

Noted poet and critic William Logan in an article in the current New Criterion recalls taking the course, presenting a vivid portrait of Milch, an inveterate gambler on football games and horse racing and a superb writing teacher.

Milch in his memoir looks back on his career as a rebellious Yale undergraduate. Although seriously addicted to heroin and alcohol, and frequently in trouble with local law enforcement, Milch enjoyed a warm relationship with Yale professor, novelist and poet Robert Penn Warren.

Warren, as Milch fondly remembers, gave special attention to Milch's work, praising his novel in progress as containing the best dialogue that one of his students had ever written. Warren treated Milch as a wayward son, inviting him to visit his home and giving him career advice.

Milch also built a close relationship with the famed Yale critic R.W. B. Lewis, assisting him with his research on Lewis' Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Edith Wharton. All the while, Milch was searching for drugs and betting on horses and sports, while struggling to finish the novel praised by Warren.

The book looks back on Milch's abusive, reckless father, a surgeon also addicted to gambling who treated gangsters to pay off debts. Milch also was sexually abused as a young boy by a camp counselor. He used his chilhood traumas as material for his TV shows.

After Yale, Milch received a chance opportunity to write for Steven Bochco's ground-breaking NBC police drama "Hill Street Blues." Milch and Bochco then collaborated on the controversial crime saga "NYPD Blue," a smash for the network while drawing fire from conservatives because of its violence and explicit sexuality. A few flashes of nudity shook the foundations of network TV.

TV's gain was literature's loss; Milch never finished his novel. Yet characters like Dennis Franz's alcoholic detective Andy Sipowich in "NYPD Blue"  laid the foundation for HBO "quality TV" productions  like "The Wire" and "The Sopranos."

With a wife and family, Milch entered rehab, leading to his fascination with St. Paul's conversion to Christianity, his evangelistic career and New Testament writings, and his martyrdom in Rome.

Milch pitched HBO a show based on Paul's establishing the church throughout the Roman empire, but the cable network already had a show on ancient Rome in the works.

Seeing gold as analogous to St. Paul's world-changing symbol of Jesus' cross, Milch instead sold HBO on  the series"Deadwood," which explored  the rough life in the South Dakota boom town where the precious metal was discovered in the 1870s. It was famous as the place where "Wild Bill" Hickock was murdered, the subject of a powerful "Deadwood" episode.

"Deadwood," known for its vulgar dialogue, shocking violence and striking characters, was one of HBO's most memorable shows although it only lasted three years. Despite battling Alzheimer's, Milch completed the show with a movie-length conclusion.

"Life's Work" while often disjointed and egocentric tells a compelling story of redemption. After all of his destructive behavior, Milch achieves grace.

 

Andrea Barrett's "Natural History" revisits enthralling family saga

Andrea Barrett's "Natural History" rekindled my enchantment with fiction.

Barrett's collection of linked stories tells the histories of several interconnected families from the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the present.

"Natural History," published in 2022, extends the family saga she's examined in nine previous books, including the National Book Award-winning collection "Ship Fever." She's won the MacArthur "genius" award, and Guggenheim and NEA fellowships.

The characters live in Hammondsport, a village in central New York state's Finger Lakes region. Barrett is one of those writers who find universality in a small fictional place.

Barrett's predominantly female characters share a consuming interest in science and technology. Henrietta Atkins, a 19th century teacher and botanist who gives her students immersive lessons in insect and plant life, is the main character of the first stories in "Natural History," which follow her life from the American Civil War to after World War I.

Henrietta, who never marries and has a close friendship with another female scientist, Daphne Bannister, is an influential figure for generations of Hammondsport's children. She also plays a formative role in the lives of her nieces, Marion, Caroline and Elaine Cummings and their younger twin sisters, Agnes and Alice Cummings.

The book traces Henrietta's life from a child working for a local family through old age. Along with her teaching and scientific career in the village, she makes several momentous trips with Daphne, who becomes a famed author. 

How Henrietta inspires her nieces and students carries forth an intricate narrative of village life. Barrett gives each family member and acquaintance a distinctive personality.

Henrietta's childhood is haunted by a wounded Civil War veteran who returns to the village. One of her work duties was writing letters to him while he was away, and she was consumed by his returned letters describing camp life and different battles.

Later, she participates in the veteran's contributions to a regimental history, seeking to atone for accusations of its cowardice during the battle of Chancellorsville.

Her teaching gives the adventure of knowledge to several gifted students who go on to successful artistic and scientific careers. Henrietta's quiet life is full of intellectual and emotional excitement.

In the daring and adventuresome story "The Accident," her niece Caroline Cummings' career as an early aviation barnstormer takes center stage. 

Also appearing are a wealthy aristocratic family who owns a winery in the area, threatened by the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919. A family heir, Charles Durand, marries the lower class Alice Cummings, joining the two families.

Rose Marburg, the present-day central character of the concluding story that gives the book its title, is the granddaughter of Charles and Alice. Rose's life uncannily replicates that of her distant ancestor, Henrietta. Both love scientific exploration, writing and natural beauty. Each mourns brief, tragic love affairs, and unfulfilled careers.

Along with her impressive knowledge of American history and the country's golden age of inventions and intellectual discovery, Barrett gives lessons in cellular biology, botany and scientific literature.

Barrett's deeply imagined characters follow their destinies against the unfolding of history. Their small-town stories reflect that of the nation at large.