The Heretic’s Daughter by
Kathleen Kent- 332 p.
Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be
accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother,
young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal
world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter
are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and
the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than
200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous
defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.Kathleen Kent is a tenth generation descendent of Martha Carrier. She paints a haunting portrait, not just of Puritan New England, but also of one family's deep and abiding love in the face of fear and persecution.
The Right-Hand Shore: A Novel by Christopher Tilghman
“Constructed, Wuthering Heights style, . . . The Right-Hand Shore represents an outing of some of America’s most troubled ghosts . . . Tilghman unfolds his harsh lesson with precision, delicacy and startling humor . . . ‘The Right-Hand Shore’ is the dark, magisterial creation of a writer with an uncanny feel for the intersections of place and character in American history. His readers will want to hear more stories from the Eastern Shore estate. Let’s just hope he doesn’t keep us waiting for another 16 years.” —Fernanda Eberstadt, New York Times Book Review
“Tilghman’s exquisite third novel returns to the eastern shore of Maryland to prefigure the events of his first, Mason’s Retreat.
It’s 1920, and recently married Edward Mason has arrived at the
Retreat—a former planation and peach orchard, and now a dairy—to meet
his distant cousin, Mary Bayly, the current owner. Mary’s cancer has put
the fate of the property in jeopardy—and Edward in line to receive the
gift and burden of the land. After an unsettling interview with the
formidable Mary, Edward sits with the longtime property manager, Oral
French, and his wife, who recount the Retreat’s secrets, from
miscegenation to slavery to murder. Listening to the pain caused by
pride, selfishness, and the desire for love, Edward feels ‘mauled by the
pull of the past, still so fresh for these people.’ The tale’s descent
into tragedy is nevertheless beautiful; ‘creamy yellow’ sunlight and the
perfume of peach blossoms pervade Mason’s Retreat alongside its ghosts
and horrors. Tilghman maneuvers through the misery of three generations,
following each elegant plot turn inevitably back to its source: this
living, breathing land on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The Things They Carried By Tim O'Brien
A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.
Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.
Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.
The Things They Carried won France's
prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune
Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the
National Book Critics Circle Award.
