South Carolina Books

After reading some bad reviews I was concerned, but I have to tell you this book was thought provoking and a good tale. I am not into saving the environment, and I did not find this to be preachy in anyway as some of the reviews stated. If you enjoy a book about family, love and caring this is a great story. There is much more than saving Sweet grass and it is a good life lesson!

I really do love everything this author has written as do my daughter and Mom who have read them as well! I love the stories that Mary Alice Monroe writes and how she weaves love of and experience of nature into stories of family and relationship.

I love books from the Carolinas in the Pat Conroy tradition even though I'm from North Dakota and have lived in Houston, Texas almost 20 years. These books have developed my joy of the sea. I always thought I was a lake person but not anymore!

In this book Mary Alice Monroe tells us all about losing the land we love. How money, illness and greed has destroyed our farms and land. The low country is featured in this book. It along with beautiful land all over our once beautiful country is dissapearing so fast, it's here one day and gone tomorrow. That's what happens to the Blakely family when the elder father has a stroke. What do they do now? Can they afford to keep the land that developers would love to get their hands on. This a book about love of that land and family. About hanging on by your fingernails and making baskets, one at a time, slowly and lovingly. It's about preserving our heritage and fighting for what's most dear to us. Very good book. The story gives us an even greater lesson then we realize unless we take the time to look at our shrinking lowlands.

I must be on a Southern Lit kick because I read this one in one day ~~ since it was too hot to be outside, it seems logical to sit and read a book ... which is what I did. I found this book in a rummage sale also and since I have read one of her earlier works, I've been searching for more of her titles. I found this one and didn't regret it. It is the perfect summer read!

This novel is based on a family riddled with secrets that continued to haunt them to the present. There's Mama June, there's her husband, Preston, who was befelled by a horrible stroke. There's Nan, their daughter, married to an ambitious businessman, and mom to two teenage sons. There's Morgan, the prodigal son, home from Montana where he had lived for ten years, fighting to preserve the bison there. They all come back together when Preston had a severe stroke. The story weaves between past and present, with other characters involved, like Nona, the housekeeper/cook whose family has strong and long ties with the Blakely family over the centuries. She is also a sweetgrass basket weaver. There's Kristina, the therapist who became very involved with the entire family and there's Adele, Preston's sister, who wants nothing more than to get rid of Sweetgrass and all it holds.

This book is about family relationships, love and death, and rediscovering love all over again ~~ going back into memory lane and fighting for what is important. It is an endearing book. It is sweet and sentimental. It will keep you thumbing through the pages to find out how it ends (even if it is more predictable than you expected ... but all ends well is a happy novel, right?), and it's the perfect summer read ~~ so if you're going to the beach or to the lake or even to the pool, be sure to grab a copy of this novel. It's perfect for the plane ride too ~~ so kick back with a glass of iced tea and enjoy!

7-6-07

ANOTHER WONDERFUL BOOK FROM MARY ALICE MONROE! I HOPE SHE KEEPS THEM COMING.
ENDEARING,MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE YOU REALLY KNOW THE PEOPLE.

I entirely disagree with the reader below me. (Everyone owned slaves back then, except for, notably, Alexander Hamilton, who hated slavery, and yes, he wasn't the only one. But still, the focus of the book was Theodosia, not Aaron.)

I came across Theodosia while I was watching the PBS Home Video "The Duel" (which I recommend if you are interested in Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, the duel itself, or politics in that time period). I wanted to know more about her and purchased this book. I'm glad I did! This biography seems more like a novel because of the incredible, fast-paced journey it leads you on into the past. I especially liked the last few chapters, when the author explored Theodosia's possible fates and the "mystery of the Nag's Head portrait." This whole book never had a boring moment, so if you are interested in this great yet unknown woman or her infamous father, read this book ASAP!

I first heard about Theodosia Burr while visiting Charleston, SC, earlier this year. The tour guide mentioned she was Aaron Burr's daughter, a woman educated like a man and raised to be future Empress of Mexico, who disappeared at sea and was rumored to be stolen away by pirates. I was fascinated and determined to learn more. When I looked up Theodosia on Amazon, Richard N. Cote's book came up. I bought it immediately.

I was not disappointed. The biography "Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy" by Richard N. Cote was a fun ride through history. While the book could use more editing, the story itself was intriguing. A Revolutionary War hero and infamous duelist, Aaron Burr raised his only child to be female version of himself: a sophisticated, intelligent, free-thinking prodigy who socialized with French nobility, Native American Chiefs, and quite a few famous Americans, including President George Washington and Dolly Madison.

What I discovered reading this, however, was that Theodosia herself did not interest me as much as her father. In fact, something about her turned me off. I found myself skimming sections about her to learn more about her charismatic father, Aaron Burr, whose mercurial career in politics and wild scheme to conquer Mexico made for a much more interesting story.

All in all, "Theodosia" was a great book in terms of history. I learned quite a bit about our Founding Fathers and what life was like after the War in the newly formed US. I also enjoyed satisfying my curiosity about Theodosia's education and death, as it is an interesting footnote in history. But more importantly to me, I was pleased to learn so much about Aaron Burr, the third Vice President of the US. He is the true hero of this book.

What an in depth and at times riveting account of Theodosia, the beautiful and very gifted daughter of Vice President and scheming traitor, Aaron Burr. This is a story that has been told before but never brilliantly as in Mr. Cote's sweeping tale. The author brings to life the romantic and tragic heroine, Theodosia, so vividly that the reader truly feels her joys and pain. From her privileged upbringing by a father who was a brilliant but flawed man to her marriage into South Carolina's wealthiest family and eventually to her mysterious death at age 28, this is a story that carries us through the ballrooms and political intrigue of the 18th and early 19th Century. Theodosia, the most well educated woman of her time, was destined by her ambitious father to be empress of Mexico in a scheme both treasonous and ultimately ruinous. Theodosia vanished at sea in 1812 leaving behind a haunting portrait that washed up on a North Carolina beach and a story so intriguing that it lingers in the heart and mind long after the book is finished.

I hate to rain on the parade of all these glowing reviews, but this book is a product of shoddy, lazy, amateurish research. A full 59% of the footnotes are based on secondary sources, & a full 25% of those are from one source alone which the author himself admits is unreliable. The section on Aaron Burr's mother is based on a "source" well-known for decades to be [untrue]. The discussion of Burr as a "slave-owner" is totally misleading, based on assumptions for which there is no evidence, & completely overlooks Burr's well known anti-slavery record. I could go on & on, but you get the picture. The book is full of factual errors, misleading assumptions, & faulty logic. Theodosia Burr Alston needs a good biography, but this isn't it.

There is little doubt that Vice President Aaron Burr was the single, most important person in the world to this young, and impressionable young woman: and why not? He was, after all, her father, the person most likely to offer her his best nurturing protection, validate her worth, and interpret the world as he would like her to see it, educating her for what he perceived it to be, in its complexity as well as its simplicity. As his most unconditional admirer, she apparently did the same for him, and as his trusted confidant, the author spectacularly preserves and presents their special relationship of father and daughter with reasonable success despite the number of rumors, accusations, and hype that usually accompanies infamous figures in history, allowing us to appreciate the complexities of political environments, personal relations, and complex events in a very readable and eloquent fashion, in today's conjecture of thought and reason as best he can from a 200 year old antique history. An insightful account of a very colorful period of American history. While certain presumptions may well be far fetched, certainly the inquiry is a valuable contribution to what can only be called one of the very few accounts of the importance of females in the lives of historical figures.

This year our baseball team (comprised of 13-16 yr olds) decided end of year trophies would be a little juvenile for the boys. The coach let me know about this book and thought it would be a good idea to give each of the boys one for the end of the season gift. We did and it was very well received! An amazing book for anyone that aspires to do something more with their life!

Well written and very easy to read! I highly reccomend!

This book provides an excellent insight into the life of Lou Holtz and his motivational attitude on life. His dry humor will make you laugh, his thoughts inspiring, and make you think W.I.N. for those tough decisions in life.

Lou listed some great stories.

In fact that is one reason why this is a great book, because Lou is an AWESOME story teller.
Listen to the audio book as you read, Lou narrates this book very well.

Lou has lived an amazing life.
He just got it done, no matter what he does.
Anyone can pick up some great tips about being more successful from this book.

Paul

This is an excellent read! You won't want to put it down and it will make you do some self examination.

An inspiring memoir full of famous personalities from sports and politics. Lou's humble beginnings and deep-rooted faith in family and religion took him to the top of the college football world and into the circles of many of America's most famous leaders. This is quite a guy.

I felt that the book was good. Some of the concepts could have been explained in better detail. I notice that on a lot of the chapters the authors repeated some of the material more than once. Some chapters need more practice problems like in chapter 5. This book explains the basic and fundamental concepts good but does not explained the difficult concepts good. Overall, this book was good.

This book's explanations were poor at best. It utilized undefined terms, and had a weak glossary/index.
Explanations of financial formulas were sorely lacking, and the organization of these formulas so that one could ever find them wasn't even attempted.

Not recommended.

We used this "Brigham" for the course financial management, MBA programm.
The book gives a good overview and analysis of the main issues and is rather easy to understand and pleasant to read. You sould be aware that some issues are seen through the American glasses. Very usefull, I warmly recommend it.

This book falls into the category of professors who know the material, but just can't communicate it. I can tell it was written on a schedule...sloppy wording, confusing definitions, and unintuitive examples and explanations. This information isn't that tough to understand...poor writing makes it so.

Here's a paragraph defining WACC, p.11.
Financial managers also must make finance decisions relating to how to finance the firm. In particular, what mix of debt and equity should be used, and what specific types of debt and equity should be issued? Also, what percentage of current earnings should be retained and reinvested rather than paid out as dividends? Along with these financing decisions, the general level of interest rates in the economy, the risk of the firm's operations, and stock market investors' overall attitude toward risk determine the rate of return that is required to satisfy a firm's investors. This is a return from investors' perspectives, but it is a cost from the company's point of view. Therefore, it is called the weighted average cost of capital (WACC).

As in the rest of the book, too many words, no directness or clarity.

Don't buy this book for self-study; you'll spend most of your time trying to decipher the obfuscating sentences.

Like many of the other reviewers, this text was required for my MBA program. As intro books go, I think that this book is much more advanced then what many reviewers have indicated.

Plus, my terms are 8 weeks long and this textbook is way, way too long for such a short time period. My school should adopt a textbook that is shorter in length. The book has over 25 long chapters. We barely studied half that before the term came to an end.

I felt that the layout of the text was not great. By this I mean, it would have been very helpful if, like other textbooks, the publishers/authors defined terms and concepts in the margins. Often times, the authors failed to provide clear definitions in the narrative forcing you to go to the glossary.

Next point, the authors present the material in long dense paragraphs which can be a challenge to get through. They need to break things up a bit more and interject more solved problems and examples.

I found this text more "academic" in nature and not something I could use as a reference on the job. I am looking for the practical and not the theory.

Bottomline, I would rather use a textbook that gets to the point faster, has more worked out problems, and is more visually inviting so to speak. For example, I have an old edition of Gitman's "Financial Management" and I like it much better then this textbook. The study guide that goes with Gitman's book is really good as well.

Meanwhile, I am debating whether to keep this text as reference or not.

The most useful book we found about Asheville. Fun to read, full of info and excellent photos. For visitors or new residents. Only problem is it is out of print.

This book is an interesting relic of history, but it's now completely outdated. Most of the locations and stores are closed, and much of the "underground" information is wholly inaccurate. Only worth buying for that limited set of people who have a nostalgia for what the town used to be.

This book is a must have for anyone living in Asheville,moving to or just visiting Asheville.I moved just outside of Asheville a couple of years ago and this book has been a great guide to find things to see and do around the Greater Asheville area,this book has alot of places to go and see that usally you only find out about by living here for years or word of mouth so this book is a great information guide for showing your out of town guest around the city and the near by mounatins.Tom's Great humor adds a friendly feeling to it and you feel like your talking to a friend and it keeps you reading right though until
the end!Also Gail's great photos are great to look at but I wish there were more of them and I would like to see a Part Two to this book and maybe some more of Gail Forsyth-Kerr's great photos of Asheville added to it.So order this book you will not be sorry until you get to the end and still want to hear more about this great mountain City!Thanks Tom + Gail!!
Ken Benjamin
APPLE CREEK FARM
SPRING CREEK,NC

This book is what all travel guides should be. It makes suggestions for great places to visit and gives detailed instructions on how to get there.

This book did not leave my side for my entire visit! It was like having a (really fun) friend in the city! Found places we never would have on our own. A+++!!

I just discovered this author and am enjoying each of the books I have read. Flies on the Butter was especially a great read as the relationship between the grandfather and granddaughter reminded me of my childhood and our relationship. Also, her relationship with her Mother - right there also. So many of the comments on church, food, activities - it took me back. I would recommend.

The story line had a lot of promise. I wanted so much to love Rose and love her story, but I think the book became trite and boring. I have a hard time believing a husband would be that forgiving. I liked all the people Rose met along her journey; I just didn't feel her repentance for her actions. It really did not grab me and I believe it could have.

Denise Hildreth's "Flies on the Butter" is my kind of novel! I was so fascinated by the inner workings of her heroine, Rose, that I had to make this novel the "dessert" of my day or I would not have gotten my own writing done. If you love mysteries, you'll enjoy following the trail of what's been going on in Rose's life. If you like relationship novels, you'll be in reader heaven with "Flies on the Butter," and you'll be thrilled with the outcome. Her novel is smut-free, a very important criteria for me. I am delighted to find another novelist who writes about the things I write about and creates the kind of books I love to read. Readers, you don't want to miss "Flies on the Butter"! It's really a great book to look forward to as you finish your work day! Kay Moser, novelist www.kaymoser.com

Thirty-something Rose Fletcher, a successful lobbyist in Washington, D.C., is on her way to visit her small town Southern home for the first time in a long time, but there's a lot more to her than meets the eye. The novel's fairly traditional prodigal/coming home plot is enlivened by the author's Southern charm, wit, and sensibility. The storyline flows smoothly, the flashbacks are natural, and the character development is strong. It's the kind of book that won't let you stay at arm's length; it demands to pull you in. And you won't be sorry.

This is a great, thought-provoking book. It will stir up memories, good and bad, and help you take a long, hard look at where you've been and where you're headed. It will also remind you that God is always in control and His plans are perfect.

I've got to say it took me forever to get into this book. I just finished it 30 seconds ago ... and I'm glad the long journey has come to an end. Usually I am so engrossed in a book I can't put it down ... this one I had to force myself to keep reading. But I finished it ... it kept calling me back, I wanted to know the end and I'm glad I did. This book had some laugh out loud parts to it ... and it had a surprising depth, that you wouldn't expect from such a sleeper of a book.

I'm a little wary at starting Lost in Rooville ... but hopefully it will surprise me like A Delirious Summer did.

After reading Flabbergasted, I quickly became a fan of Ray Blackston and his quirky characters. And he impressed me even more with Delirious Summer. There is such an element of fun in his decriptions of the many wacky characters in this book that I could not help but be amused. Unlike other writers in the Christian fiction genre, Blackston doesn't try to shove oversimplified moral lessons down his readers' throats; he offers us instead insight into the minds of normal, flawed people and how they approach their relationships with God. Who wouldn't want to read about a man who climbs roofs to talk to God, a mentor who uses a tangelo to instruct young men about the nature of love, or a girl with a piercing who has a milkshake ministry? Great book. Great author.

This was something that I charged into head on. I can easily say that I took the same route with "Flabbergasted", and I found an author that I want to keep up to date. I didn't exactly blast through this like I can do with other reads, but I did finish it, and I can say that I recommend it. I can easily see why this might be a favorite for some, yet I can also see how others might have been in some spots and this and thought, "COME ON! Let's pick up the pace, Blackston." There are times where I'll pick up what I'll label a mediocre read, yet it'll leave me craving for more in the end. That's how this was for me.

So, is this where we depart with Jay Jarvis? Probably not, but we do meet Neil Rucker. By the way, Jay is the slowest Spanish student that Neil has EVER had to endure. You'll join Neil on furlough to South Carolina. I think my major disappointment was that I expected a whole lot of wacky stuff, just like in book #1. But while it wasn't filled with that, there were instances where I was able to laugh out loud a few times. So when Neil meets Jay's friends, (Darcy, Steve, Alexis & Lydia) they all go on a beach trip. Neil is personally looking to find love, while others might be looking to rekindle old flames amidst fire. Take another ride in Lime Sherbet! Through it all we learn a little bit about crabbing, maybe a lesson with a tangelo, but ultimately we learn a huge lesson about change. This is about learning how to hit the curve balls that God throws at you. Yeah, you may hear of some church hopping here and there, but that isn't exactly the main idea here.

So, was I glad I made this journey when it was all over? Yeah, I really was. I just didn't realize it was going to be such a long trip! I personally thought there were a few too many unanswered questions. Oh well. Will this keep me from reading Ray Blackston in the future? No way. I look forward to my next read by him, and I'm really looking for a big surprise! My hopes are indeed up, Mr. Blackston, and I'll be diving deep into the next read with more gusto than ever.

While this wasn't my favorite read, I can still say thank you for the change of pace. Keep on keepin' on!

Christian Spanish Teacher Dude (& friend of formerly-Agnostic-Stockbroker-turned-Christian-Missionary Dude) braves newly-charted Christian Singles dating scene waters until Ecuadorian tragedy strikes.

I guess I'm in the minority in saying that this book wasn't one of my favorites.

I'm not particularly interested in the "lad-lit" type of books. I did like the humor, but there didn't seem to be much depth to the characters or the storylines. It seemed that the main point of the guys was to get a woman and the women were church-hopping just to find a man. It was like THE most important thing. And that all seemed to ignore the point of going to church--to worship God among believers.

It seemed whenever a storyline or character looked promising, the author seemed to stop exploring yet. I started to take an interest in Neil and Alexis when they talked about their parents, how Alexis was rejected by her father. But after the one conversation, the storyline didn't develop. The same with Darcy and her parents, who threatened to cut her off because of her Christian beliefs. I thought the fire at the missionary story showed promise, but that seemed to end and didn't seem to indicate that it would go anywhere.

So, I was not to excited about this book. Others might enjoy it though. At least the humor and the relationships were clean, and not trashy as in a lot of books these days.

This is a lawyer's book -- a good one.

In April 1956, a Marine drill instructor led a platoon of recruits on a night march into the tidal waters of Ribbon Creek in the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. Some of the recruits strayed into deep water; six of them drowned. The public news media cried out for punishment of the responsible party. The public furor also was a threat to the continued funding of the Marine Corps. The most obvious target of this wrath was the drill instructor, Sgt. Matthew McKeon, who was all but abandoned by his commanding officers in a rush to judgment.

The book follows the ordeal of Matthew McKeon from his immediate arrest and public condemnation by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, through a court of inquiry and then a general court-martial. The author is a retired judge of the family and probate court in Essex, Massachusetts, and also a former Marine who went through boot camp in Parris Island in 1957. In preparation for this book, Judge Stevens reviewed the official records of the government and also conducted interviews of many of the persons involved.

Interestingly, the main character in the book is not Sgt. McKeon. The main character is Emile Zola Berman, an experienced New York civil trial lawyer who represented McKeon in the general court-martial without charging a fee. In contrast, General Randolph McCall Pate, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, is portrayed in a negative light and General Wallace Greene, who led the court of inquiry, is more or less given a free pass.

The court-martial lasted more than three weeks; forty-eight witnesses testified. There were many rulings on the admissibility of evidence and on strategic and tactical matters. The author does an outstanding job of condensing the testimony and explaining the significant legal issues and trial tactics, even though he sometimes overuses adjectives in that effort. For example, the word "clever" is frequently used to signal that an important concept is about to be discussed. Nonetheless, trials are complex things and there is bound to be some repetition in the telling, particularly where there are two separate but similar proceedings, the inquiry and the court-martial.

On the other hand, there is a tendency for the author to make his own determinations in ex cathedra fashion. For example, he flatly states that the law officer erred in allowing testimony of the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Corps' most colorful general officer "Chesty" Puller because the subjects of their testimony were not properly subjects of opinion evidence. While that is sometimes a valid objection to expert testimony, courts across the country allow such testimony every day. Besides, this was not a trial with a judge and jury; it was a court-martial with a board and a law officer. Suffice it to say that this question - and others - are arguable and it is for appellate authority to say whether or not the ruling was wrong.

The court-martial board consisted of seven officers, including six Marines and one member of the Navy Medical Corps. We are told little of the background of the board members except that three of the Marines were initially trained at Parris Island and one of the others had been assigned to the construction of the rifle range near Ribbon Creek. The first thing that a trial lawyer wants to know is about the members of the jury, their experience, knowledge and general background. More information about these men would have been helpful.

Finally, one wonders whether the average reader understood the distinction between negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter, which was a critical distinction in Berman's "clever" defense argument. Absent evidence of gross negligence, civilian jurisprudence would have treated this incident much like a fatal automobile accident. It is hard to understand why McKeon was confined to the brig through this entire ordeal.

I am so glad to have found this book. I am the illegitimate daughter of Charles Reilly whom I knew nothing about since he died one month before I was born. This book not only took me through the trial but also gave me incite to the person he was. Through the years I have only had a home town newspaper article of the incident and was never recognized by his family.
I am sure McKeon did not march the whole platoon into the marsh with the intent that some would surely die and do feel that he has been justly punished for his bad judgement on that fateful night. I could almost feel like I was at the trial by the way Stevens writes. As a former wife of a Marine who spent four years living the "life", I, too, would like to see this depicted on film. I would also like to locate some of the surviving members of Platoon 71 who might have more information of any kind about my father.

I have not yet read this book, but after reading the reviews, I thought a further recommendation might be helpful. My grandfather, Colonel William B. McKean, was in command of the weapons training battalion at Parris Island when the Ribbon Creek incident took place. He wrote a book about his experiences and impressions called Ribbon Creek. It is out of print but still possible to find through used and rare book stores.

Drill Sgt. Matthew McKeon had consumed some quantity of vodka, beer, and whiskey on April 8th, 1956 when he decided that the best way to instill "discipline" in his laggard platoon was to march them, at night, through a treacherous swamp that he had not reconnoitered. Several platoon members could not swim, a fact known to Sgt. McKeon, who nevertheless still plunged foolishly and criminally into the muck and mire of Ribbon Creek where six young men quickly drowned. Sgt. McKeon was arrested and ultimately convicted of negligent homicide and an alcohol-related offense. His nine-month prison sentence was reduced by the Secretary of the Navy to time already served in pre-trial confinement and his Bad Conduct Discharge was rescinded. Sgt. McKeon, now Private McKeon, was permitted to remain in the Marine Corps until he was medically retired in 1959.

Judge Stevens correctly portrays McKeon as a stand-up guy who immediately knew the enormity of his actions. It appears that McKeon spent his remaining time in the Corps, and has lived his civilian life, atoning for the conduct that cost six lives. It can not have been easy living with these unquiet ghosts for so long. The Secretary's decision to spare McKeon further jail time and to allow him to remain in the Marine Corps was correct: so was the guilty verdict, for actions this far beyond the pale deserve, and demand, the censure of a criminal conviction. Judge Stevens' slender volume, however, questions both the verdict and the decision to try McKeon in the first place. True enough, the Commandant did proclaim this presumptively-innocent man guilty within days of the incident. Yet this same Commandant later appeared at trial as a defense witness and was allowed to opine that perhaps the proper verdict should be guilty of the alcohol-related offense only and the proper punishment should be the loss of a stripe. Judge Stevens maintains that McKeon was thrown to the wolves for doing nothing more than following established precedent for dealing with a bad training platoon, sort of a "just following orders" defense with a scapegoat twist. Further, it is as hard to portray McKeon's lead civilian counsel, a wealthy personal injury lawyer, as a defender of the constitutional rights of the downtrodden as it is to portray a career Marine as downtrodden, yet that is the tack Judge Stevens takes. The Marine Corps may indeed have a "...propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's," as President Truman once observed, but the Corps is not an evil monolith that would sacrifice one of it's own to the false god of public opinion. Sgt. McKeon was convicted of exactly the charges he was guilty of. Not only was the court's verdict correct but so is the verdict of history.

"Court Martial at Parris Island," though far too breezily written for so weighty a subject, bogs down repeatedly in trial-evidence minutiae. And how many times can McKeon's attorney be described as "clever" before the word ceases to have meaning?

I want to begin my comments by saying this is an excellent balanced book and that Stevens deserves a lot of credit. I would further recommend it to any Marine or others interested in Marine Corps history.

I will also state it is my opinion that S.Sgt. Matthew McKeon was a good man who made a tragic mistake. The factors leading up to the events of the evening of April 8, 1956 are manifold and can only be fully understood by reading Stevens' book.

My personal perspective comes from having served in the USMCR and the USMC from October 1956 until August 1962 when I was Honorably discharged as a Corporal E-4. I went to Parris Island in early February of 1957 and my recruit training virtually overlaps the events of a year earlier, putting me at the rifle range at about the same time of year.

Like all of us who went though boot training, I too pulled butts at the range. The discipline and control there was far different than back at main side so on several days I took the opportunity to spend my entire lunch break walking all over the Ribbon Creek area. I wanted to understand this incident.

Definitions from Webster...

Marine: Of or relating to the sea.

Amphibious: Able to live on both land and in water.

Swim: To propel oneself in water...To float on a liquid...

DI Motto: Let's be damn sure that no man's ghost will ever say "If your training program had only done its job."

And from Chesty Puller we learn the mission of Marine Corps training! "...success in battle..."

When I got to Parris Island, I was shocked to see recruits who could not swim had joined a service called the Marine Corps. I also thought it strange the USMC would accept anyone who could not swim, but I guess the Navy does too. How much W.W.II footage have you seen with Marines wading ashore under heavy fire when the Peter and Mike boats could not make it to the beach? Or, in jungles up to their chests and necks in water at Guadalcanal and then all over the south Pacific and Vietnam as well.

HELLO! This is the mission!

In training "...the nonswimmers had been taught how to float, tread water, and dog paddle. All recruits in the platoon had received ten hours of swimming instruction before April 8."

Platoon 71 got themselves into trouble by not following McKeon and by "joking, kidding, and slapping others with twigs while yelling "Snake" or "Shark! Suddenly there was a cry for help and panic broke out..."

I had looked closely at Ribbon Creek while at the rifle range and my "vivid" reaction then was someone would need to be retarded or radically incompetent to drown in that area! Several in platoon 71 fit this description.

"About three-fourths of the platoon was squared away. But the remainder were foul balls." "For example, eight of the men in Platoon 71 were either illiterate or had General Classification Test scores - approximately equivalent to an IQ test - below 70."

McKeon's colorful assessment that 25 percent of the platoon were "foul balls", may not have been far off the mark based on the testimony of several members of the platoon at the trial and in later interviews"

"The quality of some of the men under McKeon's tutelage may also be measured by their behavior after completing boot camp. At the time of the court-martial, two men were AWOL from Parris Island, one was AWOL from Camp Lejeune, one had deserted, one was in the brig, and one was awaiting punishment by his commanding officer." Remember these men did not complete their recruit training under McKeon, so other DI's also had a chance to make these guys good Marines.

SDI Staff Sergeant Huff had basically washed his hands of the young men under him...Stevens states "McKeon was failing, and he knew it." I think it was SDI Huff who was failing.

As far as the charges of being drunk the testimony is flawed and inconclusive. "Not until the court-martial nearly four months later would Dr. Atcheson admit that there was no clinical evidence of intoxication."

His own recruits "...testified that there was no evidence that Mckeon was drunk or impaired by drinking". Of all the recruits in the platoon who had made statements "...not one...had anything negative or critical to say about Sergeant McKeon".

McKeon was victim of being a nice guy by helping Scarborough with his bottle, allowing him to leave it in the barracks, driving Scarborough to the NCO club and accepting congratulattory drinks he never finished. Granted, McKeon used bad judgement but he was certainly not a bad guy.

S.Sgt. McKeon was the first person in the water and he was the last one out. He was leading, not just ordering recruits into an unknown situation. It is empirically obvious that if they had just followed him, as instructed, they all would have gotten back safely. Basic for military training!

Bottom line, McKeon was a new junior DI carrying virtually the whole burden of squaring away this platoon. When I got there a year later there was a "Motivation Platoon". I don't know if this approach existed in 1956 but what I saw of the "Motivation Platoon" regimen would have straightened out these "foul balls".

Although busted to Private, McKeon was allowed to stay in the Marine Corps. He attempted to rebuild his career, capitalizing on his W.W.II carrier experience. He worked with an all-weather fighter squadron and supplemented his private's pay by working nights in the kitchen of the EM club. Remember he had a wife and kids!

Earlier that year he had earned his squadrons "Marine of the Month" award.

"With one exception, all of the men interviewed forty years later spoke as highly of their former drill instructor as they had at the trial."

Enough said!

Marietta Cook, has always wondered why she wasen't the color of her light father, instead being color of her non present father. After her mother dies Marietta leaves her small home town in South Carolina, to try to find her Uncle. She ends up meeting playboy Sinbad, and getting pregnant, returns to her hometown. Marietta gives birth to twin boys. Marietta leaves again, and is introducted to the game of football from her neighbor who watches it all the time, Marietta see's football as her twin sons way out, and a way to be respected. The two boys end up pro, and she moves with them, and have to get use to the city left. This book is so good, you want regret reading it, it's like you is there with Marietta the whole time.

This novel fails in the last 1/3. The author could have made this a tightly-woven tale about individual and collective community in low-country South Carolina. Instead, she took the easy way out -- Marietta Cook's sons succeed in football, are drafted by the Rams, and her problems end. Life doesn't work that way. As the story progressed, Marietta searched for her roots -- she gave up that search when the boys moved here to LA. There was a glimmer in the novel when Marietta was cleaning house for a rich Charleston white woman who referred to a piece of furniture as having been inherited from her great-grandmother. The author should have kept Marietta in low-country SC; she and the rich white woman could have discovered that the white family owned the plantation on which Marietta's "gran" and "gran-gran" were slaves -- together they could have searched for their roots and discovered the intertwined black and white communities of the plantation South -- Marietta's "gran-gran" likely polished the same table. The author's southern California background does not allow her to understand black or white Southern communities.

Incredible book. Funny, heartbreaking, brave, fearsome.
Marietta, the protagonist, is a large, "blue-black" pregnant teenager in the Gullah speaking region of South Carolina. Big Ma (her granny) delivers her of a set of surprise twin boys (a scene that I, a midwife, found particularly engaging), and the rest of the book is Marietta's struggles to do right by her two hulking sons. Not to give the end away, but football becomes their salvation.
The daring part of the book's construction is that huge sections of dialogue are rendered in accurate Gullah dialect. It takes a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it flows beautifully and adds immeasurable richness to the reading.
Don't miss this one.

Initially, I was impressed by the fact that a white author could capture the Black voice so accurately. But as I got deeper into the book, I got over the race issue and I was simply impressed. It was a unique and fascinating story with characters so real, I could almost see and hear them. And I know that I'll be thinking of Marietta, Calvin and Nate long after I've moved onto my next read. I'm looking forward to reading more of Straight's work.

I began this novel for a book club assignment specifying books written about South Carolina, or by South Carolina authors. As I had lived in Charleston, SC, during my early adult years, I was excited to find a book that would evoke my memories of the black culture and language that I had become so familiar with. When I discovered that the author was a white woman with no apparent ties to Charleston or it's black subculture, I began the book with the expectation that it would be as authentic as southern accents are in Hollywood movies. Was I in for a surprise! The Gullah language was accurate enough to affect me for weeks on end, as my sentence structure and word choice reverted back to my Charleston days. But it was the term "blue-black," and its racial connotations, that completely convinced me that this author knew intimately the world she was portraying. Surprisingly, white people are relatively peripheral to this story and never directly abuse the main character or her sons, with the exception of a white child playing with her toddler twin sons as if they were pets of some sort. Marietta likewise distances herself from the Civil Rights movement and when asked to participate in a lunch counter sit-in, she sneaks out through the kitchen when things heat up. She had just wanted to be included, for once, and be a part of the black cultural family despite having no interest in Civil Rights per se. Because she is so black and so large, she is looked on with fear by her own race, who, in a sort of reverse prejudice that exists still, look down on those who appear most African. Browner skin tones, "good" hair, and less African features are all looked on as more attractive and desirable compared to Marietta's very dark countenance. This is the reason Marietta pushes her boys into succeeding at football. Their size and apparent fierceness is an asset in football but a liability in the world otherwise. Even as small children, her boys are routinely challenged to fight by other boys at their school, and Marietta fears that her sons will have an even harder time fitting into society than she does. Although she has fared well working as a domestic, she fears that her huge, very black sons may have problems with white culture, where, she has heard, cars have swerved off the road to hit black people walking along the road side. Although the book is criticised for the apparent superficiality of the California portion of the story, I felt the writer evoked the superficiality of the California culture and Marietta's struggle to once again fit into a culture that was foreign to her. Although appearing "African" made her assimilation into Charleston culture difficult, her appearance was accepted and even applauded in California, where diversity had a head start on the south. A white man, slightly drunk, approaches Marietta at a ballgame and askes her how she likes America, as he assumes from her African headwrap, bright clothing, and physical appearance, that she must be visiting from Africa. As the mother of celebrity pro football players, her "look" is accepted without question in California. She eventually is able to find a black community where she fits in, with a lake for fishing, and she leaves behind the world of row-on-row condos where people walk for exercise only, and to get anywhere you have to drive a car. Marietta comes to love herself, to accept her often difficult life, and to realize that no matter how much of an outsider she had felt herself to be in the past, she could always find "family" for support and help, no matter where she lived. This book is a wonderful coming-of-age story about a woman who is too black, too large, too "hard," and too silent (she never liked "she-she" talk) for even her own race to get to know, much less learn to understand her. The story immerses you in the Charleston black subculture that hasn't changed all that much since the time frame of the story. But my original question remains: How the heck does Susan Straight know so much about Marietta and her people?!

This book is not so very well written, apart from the fairy tales spaced throughout it. The story is forced, and the psychological development too shallowly described.

Reading a fairy tale within the pages of a novel just doesn't work for me. Also, the main character was not likeable.I didn't care about anyone in this book and although the author seemed to be using the fairy tale written by the main character's mother as a means to pull the reader in, for me, the method failed and the "mystery" was not very intriguing.

Benedick Hunter makes for a readable anti-hero in this novel which uses the fairy tale as a detective lens to look for the roots of suicide and madness. The subject matter Craig picks is ripe for overstatement so it is wonderful that she manages to get the tone just right. She stays tight and economical with her language and as a result the images that she does use are striking and well-crafted. The ending is a trifle precious and pat. I understood the point, but acknowledging the illness is only the first step to recovery. Aside from this minor quarrel, In a Dark Wood makes for a fine and moving read.

Benedick Hunter is having what at first appears to be a middle-aged crisis. He's an actor who hasn't had any steady work recently. His wife is divorcing him and he bickers constantly with his pompous father. He finds little joy from taking care of his imaginative, but demanding young children. Benedick lives off from the small amount of royalties from his mother's children's books. After rediscovering one of these collection of fairy tales he begins reading the stories for deeper personal meanings. He's compelled to follow a trail of his mother's old friends who are scattered over Britain and America like a trail of breadcrumbs. The mysteries contained in her subversive fables lead him to his mother's childhood home and the truth about his family that has been hidden from him. Gradually he learns that his alienation from society and erratic behaviour has its roots in a mental illness. But he has to descend into the darkest psychological depths in order to learn how to live with this disorder.

In this beautiful and moving novel, Craig manages to write very convincingly about a man's perspective of the world. Benedick's personal aspirations are clouded by despair in a way that prevents him from also appreciating all the loving people he has in his life. Unfortunately, he has also inherited a lot of pain and bitterness from his mother's life, many of the facts of which have been hidden from him. We are also given many funny details about the cultural differences between America and England. What the author also does so extraordinarily well is show a blend of light and dark in this central character's psychology. He does a number of detestable things. Yet we are given insight into them and understand they are acts of desperation brought about through a mental illness he can`t control. Craig pays tribute to the important and complex work of Angela Carter who was dubbed the Fairy Godmother of British fiction. She does this by insisting that fairy tales have a much deeper meaning than what appears on the surface. The raucous emotions and terrible violence they depict just may be a greater reflection of reality than we care to admit. The psychological demons which hound many people are indeed more terrifying than the creatures who lurk in the dark woods of fairy tales. By blending the story of Benedick's travels with a number of creative fairy tales, Craig gives us a lot of insight into this while producing an enthralling story.

Having suffered from clinical depression and known others with manic depression, I was hooked by the idea of a novel about it - and amazed to find it not only deeply sensitive to the condition but a great piece of fiction too. What nobody so far has mentioned is that it's very FUNNY. Craig has segued the idea of someone going on an Oedipal quest to discover the truth about himself with the confusion many men feel about their place in a world increasingly dominated by women. I laughed so much at Benedick's attempts to cope with his kids, his failing career as an actor, even his self-pity before being plunged into his heart of darkness. There are so many smart observations, but this is a deep book about our need for stories, and about finding sanity and hope in the midst of despair.