Natchez: A Novel of the Deep South

Spanning from 1729--and the early incursion of whites into the lower Mississippi River territory of the Natchez Indians--through 1885, this well-written, grandly imagined saga from the author of Deepwater moves across four generations of passionate, iron-willed women of the Old South. After losing his wife and children to illness and a boating mishap during their arduous sea and river voyage from Stonington, Conn., in 1775-76, Josiah Fleming arrives in Natchez too late to claim his 500 acres of prized land. Robbed of his hope of a new life, he picks up the pieces and ultimately weds Jane, the widowed sister of his neighbor. Their willful daughter, Anne, runs off with a riverboat gambler and turns her own six-year-old daughter, Arden, over to nuns. In turn, Arden grows up to marry and enjoy a romantic life as a plantation mistress until the Civil War turns her idyll into heartbreak. Her daughter, Felicity, widowed by the war, is left with two plantations to manage and the upbringing of her own daughter, LeeAnn, who gets caught between her grandmother and her mother as she struggles to find a life of her own. The decades of family melodrama come to a head in a heartstopping conclusion in which Felicity, having finally laid Arden to rest, must fight against social pressure to find new meaning in her life. With a Michener-like sweep and featuring a rich cast of characters (including several personified animals), this is an accomplished saga and a thoroughly enjoyable way to relive the history of a region and an era. (Sept.)