Tennessee Books

In his preface to this book, Irving Younger applauds Darrow's systematic annihilation of poor, befuddled Bryan. "Analysis of this kind of drama is irrelevant. One can only smile, admire, and wonder," he says. Although Younger declined to analyze Darrow's examination of Bryan, the contemporary press (most of whom staunchly supported teaching evolution) were not so reticent to judge. Edward J. Larsen, in the Pultizer Prize winning history of the trial, "Summer for the Gods," summed it up thus: "[T]he nation's press initially saw little of lasting significance in the trial [whose centerpiece was Darrow's examination of Bryan] beyond its having exposed Bryan's empty head and Darrow's mean spirit." p. 202.

Some quotes from contemporary sources found on page 207 of Larsen's book: Walter Lippman of the "New York World": "Now that the chuckling and giggling over the heckling of Bryan by Darrow has subsided it is dawning upon the friends of evolution that science was rendered a wretched service by that exhibition." The New Orleans "Times Picayune": "Mr. Darrow, with his sneering 'I object to prayer!' and with his ill-natured and arrogant cross-examination of Bryan on the witness stand, has done more to stimulate 'anti-evolution' legislation in the United States than Mr. Bryan and his fellow literalists, left alone, could have hoped for." The Vanderbilt University humanist and champion of evolution, Edwin Mims: "When Clarence Darrow is put forth as the champion of the forces of enlightenment to fight the battle for scientific knowledge, one feels almost persuaded to become a Fundamentalist."

As Larsen explains in "Summer for the Gods," Darrow's examination assumed the status of a legendary victory only after the release of the McCarthy-era morality play "Inherit the Wind," which took great dramatic license in depicting the examination as having "won" the Scopes Trial.

When a lawyer performs as mean-spirited an examination as Darrow did of Bryan, the lawyer's rabid fans are enthralled, his enemies are enraged, and those on the fence are encouraged to join the enemy. Darrow's examination of Bryan should be studied as a fine example of how not to perform a cross examination.

Finally, you don't have to hear someone else's take on one of the most spectacular court cases this country has ever seen. Decide for yourself who outwitted who in this battle of the courtroom titans. This book includes only the exact words from the cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan by Clarence Darrow. A must read for all those who wish to know how the cross-examination really ran.

The public recollection of what happened when Darrow questioned Bryan in the case of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes is a mixture of topics and outbursts. Most accounts of the trial, as well as the fictionalized version in "Inherit the Wind," include the discussion of the Bible Stories of Jonah being swallowed by the whale/big fish and Joshua making the sun stand still. The crucial point of the exchange comes when Darrow forced Bryan to admit the days of creation in Genesis were not 24-hour days, thereby forcing Bryan to deny the Fundamentalist's literal interpretation of the Bible. Scopes himself called it the "great shock that Darrow had been laboring for all afternoon." However, the actual exchange does not support such an interpretation. Darrow specifically asked about the number of days involved in creation. A fuller examination of the transcript, which this volume provides, indicates Darrow was trying to get at not only the length of creation but the DATE as well, intending to get Bryan to endorse Bishop Usher's infamous calculation the earth was less than six thousand years old in order to confront Bryan with evidence of civilizations considerably older. The key to the exchange is that Bryan gives a preemptive answer, declaring the days of creation were not 24-hour days BEFORE Darrow asked the specific question, in order to avoid agreeing to Usher's flawed calculations. More importantly, Bryan volunteered the information twice, each time cutting Darrow off from a particular line of question.

Moral of the Story: When there are primary documents available, such as this volume which provides the entire transcript of the trial as taking from the stenographers record, you are better served by reading them rather than secondary sources that tend to privilege a play/movie rather than what really happened.

It is amazing how much better this book has gotten from the time I first read it in 1971 as a 25 year-old to 2006 when I read it as a 60 year-old. The words, of course are the same; it is I, the reader, who has changed, more mature, more experienced, more understanding, more humane. A good book, a very good book in the genre of "To Kill A Mockingbird." "Mockingbird" has the term "classic" cornered in this genre and rightly so, but "A Cry of Absence" should be in the mix, and near the top. Its characters, those coming of age, those trying to hold on to what they beleive to be dear in the past, and those rushing wrecklessly toward an uncertain, often frightening future are more intimately involved with the tragedy of the story than even in "Mockingbird."

This is not a story they are "aware" of. It is the tragic story of their lives. There is no Attitus Fince here, but there is an equally memorable, perhaps a more human character, a character more torn apart by the distructivness of the times, more like most good, well-meaning but misunderstanding and misunderstood Southerners of that tiome. Attitus Finch was a brave man, standing up for what was right; Hester Glenn is a woman whose life comes unraveled during those times. She is a memorable character symbolic of many good people who didn't understand and couldln't handle the changing of the times. A clash of two perceived "rights," movingly and effectively written. Hester Glenn has two sons, Ames, moving however grudgingly into th e"New South," and Cam, holding on to the Old and Never-Was South. Something had to give and this book is the story of what gave. Perhaps a little too much discription at times, even to the point of detracting from the narrative, but still a good read, a movingly effective read that becomes more apprecited with the perspective of years, age and experience. As is said--or was said--in the Old South, "Madison done good..." Very good.

Available through the LSU Press in Baton Rouge.

This is, without a doubt, the best treatment of race relations during the Civil Rights era by any author, black or white. One factor of this novel that I found particularly intriguing was the contrast between the civilized, semi-aristocratic family portrayed in the book and the "white trash" and transplanted northerners in their midst. Overall, an underrated classic.

With his customary skill and craft, Jones weaves a powerful and unforgettable story of racial tension in the New South.

A young black man is brutally murdered in a small Tennessee town. The novel's protagonist, Hester Glenn, slowly comes to realize that her younger son, whom she regards as a paragon of Southern male virtue, may be involved in the killing. Amidst the growing evidence of his guilt, Hester fights to clear his name and that of her family and community.

One reviewer of A CRY OF ABSENCE has likened the novel to a Greek tragedy. Hester is a tragic figure, blinded by pride, and like all tragic figures, she must accept a tragic fate for her actions. Although a conservative Southerner himself, Jones takes no sides. He's as critical of Hester as he is the busy body liberals who set themselves up in the town as the guardians of virtue.

This is a masterful novel,a literary work that moves with the pulse of a thriller, one that has been sorely overlooked since its initial publication in the early 70's. It is long overdue its share of acclaim.

Randall Wilkes was flying high. He had a big-city Chicago career in journalism and it was all good. But then his career crashed and burned. No career meant it was probably time to return home. It had been many years after all. On his way home to Pilgrim's Rest in Tennessee, Randall stops to meet his childhood friend Sonny McMahan. Sonny had been governor and wants his autobiography/memoir written. And Randall needs a job so he took the round trip plane ticket Sonny offered and then agreed to write the book.

On the first night back, Sonny's elderly mother Faye begins talking about her dead husband. The husband she says is still alive. When Randall later hears a scream (during a storm) and goes to check on Faye, he first finds her assistant Opal Hicks dead, and then he stumbles upon Faye hanging from the bridge over Damnation Falls.

When Sonny's dead father shows up alive, another person is murdered and the long-dead body of a young woman who is connected to Randall is discovered, it is evident that there are long-buried secrets to be brought to light. Randall is determined to find out how the present has been impacted by the past.

I've never read anything by Edward Wright before. That situation is corrected and I'm excited to begin reading his earlier books.

Damnation Falls is a page-turner. It is a fast-paced, well-plotted, complex journey into the heart of a community and those that live in that community. Randall is required to use his investigative skills to solve the murders and while doing so, is called upon to separate fact from the convenient memories we all concoct about life. The characters are real, fallible human beings with secrets they fight to protect.

Armchair Interviews says: A must read.

First Sentence: All through my growing-up, my father and I would often tramp through the woods around our small Tennessee town.

Randall Wilkes, whose career as a Chicago newspaperman has gone up in flames, has come back to his small home town of Pilgrim's Rest, Tennessee. He has agreed to ghost write the autobiography of his boyhood friend and former state governor, Sonny McMahan. On his first night back, he is visited by his friend's elderly and confused mother, Faye, who rambles about her dead husband, Sonny's father, being alive. Later, he is awakened by a scream, goes to check on Faye and finds her helper dead and Faye hanged from the nearly by bridge over Damnation Falls. Soon, another body is found and Randall is out to discover who is behind the killings.

There is a line of dialogue, in the book, which represents one of the aspects I most liked: "There aren't any heroes in this story, Sonny." Wright creates characters who are all very fallible and human. The protagonist is one of the most appealing I've read in awhile. The setting of the story is wonderful and there's a very moving story within the story. The story is very well plotted with a nice little twist at the end and a good build of suspense, but the focus is on the characters and what drives them. I have been a fan of Wright's John Horn series, and this book stands up well against those. If you've not read Edward Wright, I highly recommend giving him a try.

Chicago reporter Randall Wilkes was at the top of the world when he was fired by the newspaper editor. He slinks back disgraced to his hometown of Pilgrim's Rest, Tennessee, but stops on the way in Nashville where he is given an opportunity to write the biography of the former governor Sonny McMahan; Randall and Sonny were his childhood friends.

However, only a few hours after Randall reaches his hometown, Sonny's elderly mom is found dead hanging from a bridge; her youthful care-provider is also brutally murdered. Shockingly at about the same time, Sonny's no-good late father reappears from the dead. When the remains of Randall's first lover are found after years of burial, the journalist decides to use his investigating skills and dig into murders cold and hot.

This is a strong regional investigative tale as the hero must separate what he recalls nostalgically from what he knows as fact. The story line is driven by the determined Randall who after two decades in the big city must re-adapt to small-town rural sensitivities. Readers will appreciate his efforts as friendships, family, and his reminiscing interfere with his inquiry.

Harriet Klausner

The cover of this paperback is a gravestone along the lines of Brian Conley's weird book of ten years earlier. That was about Jim Love, a fictitious character who took cocaine. At the present time, a newly-appointed county commissioner admits he sold cocaine. The name refers to a story showing the dark side of Knoxville right out of the book, 'Suttree.' He blames it on a writer from Switzerland who thought that the "city" was dirty and ugly; she took morphine in 1937 making her views unreliable.

The riverfront barges to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, were something I did not know about. Recently, he "interviewed" a California prostitute who purportedly practiced her trade in this town. I am wondering when he will find the two from New Orleans who are presently plying their wares to certain public bus drivers. That wasn't in 'Suttree.'

Bars, alehouses, wine and spirits liquor stores abound in his books and articles of which they are comprised. In this one, Harry C. was deemed a hero because he sold liquor to the decadant residents for many years until shortly before his death. The violent street resembled those of the Wild West, like 'Suttree' pretty horses movie. McAdoo's electric trolley system back then was a forerunner of today's #1 in American bus system which was that only on paper. In actuality, it is struggling to keep going, cutting back on the hours and services but propsing a floating (in air) transit center along and under the Church Street bridge and hanging in mid-air over busy James White Parkway.

These pieces are from a wild imagination. After a tragic train accident near the Cumberland Gap, "lightning danced along the telegraph wires and shocked some people using telephones downtown." You'd think he lived in downtown instead of a colony built by UT professors of long ago composed mostly of wealthy families. Granted, it is no mansion built of yellow stone, like so many in all parts of town, not well-kept up with a shabby yard and clutter like you'd find in East Knoxville. All in all, he is a modest, eccentric person old for his years.

I greatly enjoyed this latest book by Jack Neely regarding tales of Knoxville's past, which can be described at times as having a civic multiple-personality disorder. Many of the stories were particularly appealing as they complemented stories about various places and people told to me by my mother and grandmother. Mr. Neely is able to take legends or old newspaper stories and research them to give added dimension and information. He shows that Knoxville can be a very interesting place, if often frustrating, when one decides to just enjoy people as they are (or were).

I look forward each week to reading Jack Neely's "Secret History" column in Knoxville's alternative newspaper. "From the Shadow Side" presents a collection of 26 stories based upon the best of those columns and other feature articles he has written for the paper.

Compared to his earlier two collections (which I very much enjoyed), the present work seems as if it would appeal to a wider audience. In my opinion, the present book is the best of the crop, and Neely has improved upon his already well developed ability to find and tell a good story.

In a sampling of the stories one might find "Night School" which presents an account of how Adolph Ochs, legendary publisher of the New York Times, got his start in the Newspaper trade (in Knoxville, of course). In "Appalachian Aviators" one finds the timely accounts of how the Rev. Melville Murrell, John Crozier Jr., and Edward C. Huffaker contributed to the history of early aviation. In fact, the stories cover an astonishing range of topics.

The title story chronicles the visit of the writer and photographer, Annemarie Schwarzenbach," to Knoxville in November 1937. What was this wealthy Zurich heiress, close friend of Thomas Mann and Carson McCullers doing here in Knoxville? Among other things she photographed Knoxville's Front Street, an area along the river that Cormac McCarthy was to immortalize in "Suttree" some years later. But "for the rest of the story" you will need to read the book. It is worth your time.

This book compiles "deathlore" in the isolated Pennyroyal region in south central Kentucky. It covers death omens, funeral customs and ghost stories and interactions with the spirit world. These stories are all first hand accounts compiled by the author and students of his at Western Kentucky University that were taken in the mostly taken down in the 1960's although most of these stories go much farther back than that. As an academic study on folk beliefs this was worth reading although as far as pure entertainment value I was disappointed.

I believe in omens. They are a carry over from the pagan beliefs of the British Isles but they are very personal and can often seem silly when being recounted to an outside party.

I believe in the supernatural, hauntings, ghosts or whatever you want to call this phenomenom but I also accept that in most cases people are just wrong and there is a "logical" explanation for what is happening. Also people exagerate to make the story sound better. Which is often made even worse when these stories are often told in second, third, fourth, etc person on down the line form and each person telling the story just adds more to make the story a little more entertaining. Besides that the stories are often lies from the very beginning.

Ghosts Along the Cumberland was an excellent book.It was very informative about many old traditions and folklore in Kentucky.I am from Kentucky and some of these practices and beleifs are still used today,mainly by the older people.I first read this book when i was very young and it has some really great ghost stories not to mention the history and the culture of people from this area.This is a great book for anyone who just likes a good scary ghost story or someone who has an interest in the history and culture of the people of Southern and Eastern Kentucky.I whole-heartedly recommend this book for just a campfire ghost story to someone doing research on these regions of Kentucky.

This book uses first-hand interviews and anecdotes to paint a picture of the superstitious and imaginative nature of rural America, particularly that part of America which has not been touched or moved to any great degree by the hand of progress or industrialization. This is excellent bedtime reading, full of bizarre and strangely disturbing images, like scenes from a half-remembered dream, premonitions and warnings from beyond this world. A well-organized text makes this a fun and informative read, perfect for anyone with a love of American folklore and a good ghost story. Highly recommended

Dr. Ott was one of my history professors at the University of North Alabama--a beautiful regional university where he spent his academic career. THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION is the definitive work on the subject and deserves a high place on any reading list concerned with Caribbean history.

This is a wonderful book. It gets to the facts and gives all of them in a cohesive manner. Nothing is left out but the language is efficent. It is not boring, but rather an extremely helpful research tool. I recommend this book.

As an avid fan of Caribbean history, I claim this book to be one of the best I have ever read. It is a must for anyone interested in the Haitian Revolution on Saint Domingue. Mr. Ott thoroughly covers the revolution from start to finish. His writing style is efficient and to the point. The book analyzes the causes and effects of each stage of the revolution from every possible view point and deals in depth with the leading figures of this event. I highly recommend this book.

This was a great book! I used it as my subject for a book report on a bigoraphy and it gave all of the info. i needed. Wonderful book...lots of specific details and fun facts!!! awesome book for kids AND adults who are interested in the Titanic. VERY nice picures and fun to read!!!!! Two thumbs up!

Well-received by my Titanic-crazed kids (ages 7 & 9). They enjoyed Molly's spirited story & loved the poems that appear periodically, summing up milestones in the heroine's life. I loved the illustrations & overall quality of the book. Nice gift-giving item.

As one of the real "unsinkable" Mrs. Brown's great granddaughters, the more I read this book, the more I enjoy the spirit and warmth of it. Molly's life was gradually embellished into legend even in her own lifetime and through her own telling, so it is appropriate that the book takes her dramatic flair to extremes with the Mississippi River story, a yarn Ms. Blos invented. Now that the 1997 movie has renewed the interest in Titanic and endeared her character to a generation of teens, this book is a good version of her great American legacy, in-a-nutshell, for the younger kids. No, it's not all true, but neither is Washington's cherry tree story. The illustrations are fabulous and include many real-life outfits and decor Molly owned, down to the family photographs on her wall.

This scarce work should be of interest to all researchers with early Tennessee ancestors inasmuch as it covers the period prior to statehood when the settlement in eastern Tennessee was under quasi-independent rule.

During the decade of the 1780s, one of the thorniest issues facing the new nation was the disposition of territorial lands held along the frontier by some of the original 13 states. By the time the Constitution had been ratified in 1788, this issue had largely been resolved in favor of the federal government, and states like Connecticut, Virginia, and North Carolina had agreed to cede their western lands to the national government. The question of the western lands was not sorted out without some conflict, however, because many of the inhabitants of the western territories distrusted the motivations of their parent state legislatures, which, for the most part, reflected the interests of the eastern establishment and not those of the pioneering Germans and Scotch-Irish on the frontier.

One such controversy involved the creation in 1784 by John Sevier and others of a separate, self-governing territorial unit from lands in western North Carolina known as the State of Franklin. Prior to the adoption of the Constitution, Sevier and his associates had assembled all the apparatus of a functioning self-government for Franklin, including a court system. Ultimately, when the North Carolina legislature voted to cede its western lands to the federal government in 1788, the government of Franklin was compelled to disband, and its territory was reorganized as part of eastern Tennessee.

Samuel Williams's History of the Lost State of Franklin is a masterly account of this separatist movement, which portrays the figures on both sides and their motivations, chronicles the various meetings of the legislative assemblies concerned with the movement for a separate government in the west, clarifies the role of the Spanish government in fostering the separatist cause, and discusses the way of life and people of Franklin and the survival of the "spirit of Franklin" among eastern Tennesseeans. A full 60 pages of the work, moreover, are devoted to biographical sketches of John Sevier (who would become the first governor of Tennessee), Arthur Campbell, and scores of other personalities who took part in the Franklin episode. In addition, researchers will find a list of the names of all the signatories to the 1784 petition for a free Franklin as well as a complete index.

Believe it or not, there really has not been much scholarship on Franklin since this book was written. Others have of course touched on it but there's no modern monograph or narrative of the "lost state" (it never got lost, and never was a state, so the title is clearly misleading!) The writing style is dated and the research while pretty well done is, let us say, incompletely cited. Oh well.

I found this book to be excruciatingly detailed about the movement of people to the west in an attempt to escape the overpowering influence of an omnipotent federal government. It's words demonstrated that a people steeped in the idea of freedom can come together to create a government. For those who are interested in the history not found in academic texts, this is real eye opener. Buy it. Read it. Learn from it.

This book presents an interest part of American Church history in the female Holiness preachers.
Drawn primarily from their autobiographies, the author puts together an image of their daily lives comparing and contrasting the various experiences.

An insightful and important exploration of the contributions of Wesleyan Holiness women to the empowering of women for public ministry. Excellent examination of the topic from a symbolic interactionist perspective. A great weave of faith perspective and social science analysis.

Dr. Susie Stanley's book, Holy Boldness, is a must read for anyone interested in religious vocation, women's journals, women in ministry, women's contributions to the calling and profession of ministry. Stanley's feminist perspective is much needed by a majority of the church today and offers hope for understanding the past and moving us toward the inclusion of women in all the sacred halls of a male dominated clergy and religious institutions. The lives of the women ministers that she profiles are filled with courage and faithfulness. Stanley's scholarly book is a work of reconciliation writing into "history" the lives and stories of women who have been marginalized by their churches and yet have prevailed in doing the work for which they were gifted and to which they were called. I recently purchased this book for a young woman graduating from a School of Theology. She is in the company of a great cloud of witnesses some of whose names and stories we now know thanks to Dr. Susie Stanley.

_Promised Land_ does indeed cover an interesting family. The true tales of the Thomas clan, descendents of a "semi-free" entrepreneuring slave in mid-ninteenth-century Nashville, have the potential to enlarge the boundaries of our imagination of American history. The telling is another matter: far less imaginative. Much of what one learns in _Promised Land_ one could get more amusingly and emotionally wrenchingly from Edward Jones's _The Known World_. If one prefers history in non-fiction, though, _Promised Land_ is a good bet.

I was taken back by the small size of this book and then taken back again by how much history it contains. Not the stuff of dry history textbooks, this book illuminates this era with detail you won't find elsewhere and engages the reader with its intensely personal story.

Drs. Schweninger and Franklin have written an excellent history of the remarkable slave woman Sally Thomas and her three sons, James and Henry Thomas and John H. Rapier, Sr.

The book chronicles the fortunes of a "quasi-free" slave woman and her efforts to secure freedom and financial security for her three mulatto sons in Nashville, Tennessee. The authors deftly describe the often contradictory attitudes of while Nahvillians to African-Americans, both slaves and free people of color. For example, though techincally still a slave, Sally Thomas nevertheless, as a "quasi-free" slave was able to buy property, own her own home, and become a successful and respected businesswoman (opening her own laundry on Deadrick Street), as did her sons James, Henry and John (who were all three successful barbers). The authors describe a further contradiction in white attitudes to Antebellum blacks as, after much hard work and thriftiness Sally saved up enough money to buy her son James' freedom. After being granted their freedom free blacks were required by Tennessee law to leave the state, However James (and several other free persons of color), based upon exemplary moral character, successfully petitioned the court to be allowed to remain in Nashville.

The book also chronicles the lives and adventures of Sally's three sons, James and Henry Thomas and John H. Rapier, Sr.. One of Rapier's sons, James Thomas, was elected to the US Congress from Alabama in 1873.

The book does a great job of putting the Thomas-Rapier family into the context of the times in which they lived, vividly describing the social, political and religious life of Nashvile residents, both white and black, slave and free in the 1820s, 30s, 40s and 50s. As stated above, the book also demonstrates the often contradictory views of African-Americans taken by whites and portrays the ways in which slaves like Sally Thomas enjoyed relationships with whites, artfully maneuvered within the system of slavery to gain a large measure of autonomy, and were in the end respected by whites. This book may serve to overturn some long-held assumptions regarding Antebellum slavery. The authors do a masterful job of describing just how "peculiar" the institution of slavery was in actual fact.

As a resident of the Rapiers' home town of Florence, Alabama, as well as a genealogist and historian at our public library, "In Search of the Promised Land," along with Schweninger's earlier "James T. Rapier and Reconstruction," and his publication of the autobiography of James P. Thomas, "From Tennessee Slave to St. Louis Entrepeneur," is a valubale addition to our Rapier family record collection. The authors are to be commended on their impeccable research and scholarship, while at the same time, weaving this scholarship into a genuinely readable and enjoyable narrative. I highly recommend this book. My only criticism would be the hardback's small size. Still, at 280 pages, a great book!