The Color of Indigo - Withenbury, Thomas M
19,99 €
inkl. MwSt.
Versandkostenfrei*
Versandfertig in über 4 Wochen
payback
10 °P sammeln
  • Broschiertes Buch

The Color of Indigo: A Novel Paperback by Thomas M. Withenbury (Author) Historical Fiction The narrative of The Color of Indigo unfolds on a northern Mississippi cotton and indigo plantation shortly after the first volleys of the Civil War are ringing out against Ft. Sumter near South Carolina. The protagonists are Indigo, a slave laundress in her late teens, and her budding love interest, Major, a slave man in his 20s who works tirelessly as the plantation blacksmith. Although patently disallowed by the plantation slavers, Indigo and Major still foster a love relationship sub rosa. The…mehr

Andere Kunden interessierten sich auch für
Produktbeschreibung
The Color of Indigo: A Novel Paperback by Thomas M. Withenbury (Author) Historical Fiction The narrative of The Color of Indigo unfolds on a northern Mississippi cotton and indigo plantation shortly after the first volleys of the Civil War are ringing out against Ft. Sumter near South Carolina. The protagonists are Indigo, a slave laundress in her late teens, and her budding love interest, Major, a slave man in his 20s who works tirelessly as the plantation blacksmith. Although patently disallowed by the plantation slavers, Indigo and Major still foster a love relationship sub rosa. The couple's secret tryst, nonetheless, engenders a pregnancy. Their horrific existence with the white slavers leads the expecting parents to realize they cannot, must not, have their child born into bondage. They learn about something called the Underground Railroad. The couple and other trusted sympathizers decide that Indigo shall receive a ticket, so to speak, on this metaphorical railroad to freedom. She is secreted on a steam-driven logging train to the Mississippi River, where she stows away on a steamboat bound for Cincinnati, Ohio. She and her newborn son then pursue the next leg of their sojourn on another steam-driven train to freedom in the Village of Century just north of Cincinnati. Indigo's story skips ahead more than a century to 1972 in the same village. It is a factious time in American history with opposing generations at grievous odds over the country's involvement in a conflict in Vietnam. The reader is introduced to new protagonists--Ward, a returning Vietnam vet, and Caro, an accomplished journalist. Ward's father, who is terminally ill, informs his son he will inherit the family's weekly newspaper enterprise. Following his father's death, Ward and Caro work together on their newspaper, the Century Chronicle, to unravel a story of a young girl from long ago. The story is a moving saga of familial love. Of ancestry. Of shared grief for a country embroiled in a struggle at home over a conflict in Southeast Asia. The novel explores the contentious milieus of the Civil War and the Vietnam Era nearly a century later. It is about the dehumanizing effects of racism and segregation. In the end, The Color of Indigo offers a promise of dignity and hope.
Autorenporträt
Thomas M. Withenbury, author of The Color of IndigoWhile most writers attribute their creative passions to an already accomplished scribe of note or a favorite teacher or perhaps even a parent, Tom Withenbury unabashedly cites the U.S. Army, from whom he says he learned to perform as an "information specialist." This early training did not offer much of a release for any creative work, but it did earn him the much-coveted, but mostly unknown, Award of the Golden Quill at Ft. Benjamin Harrison.Following his service during the early 1970s, he earned a degree in communication from Southern Oregon State College. He then joined the ranks of the time-honored Fourth Estate and launched a career as a reporter and editor for a variety of publications. Along the way, his peers from press associations and other professional organizations bestowed upon him accolades and awards for everything from investigative reporting to a treasury of features and squishy human-interest stories. Midway through his career in print and electronic journalism, Tom accepted a challenge to jump the proverbial fence to accept a position as director of publications at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. Shortly thereafter, he was asked to serve as the director of communication and adjunct professor of journalism at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. All in all, Tom's affinity for writing has produced miles of editorial copy and far too much of what he calls "marketing nonsense." But nary a word of fiction.Tom recalls when he was raising his grade school-aged children, he was faced routinely with their challenge: 'Daddy, tell us a story!' He says his initial foray into "storytelling" was mildly successful--not only for his children but for him also. That spurred him to explore the world of writing fiction and a longing eventually to pen The Color of Indigo.The inspirations for some of his characters and locales, albeit fictional, hearken back to some of Tom's ancestors (a riverboat captain of the Civil War era and a handful of characters from his fictitious hometown of Century, Ohio) not to mention his personal upbringing and appreciation for his own family's genealogy.Tom's mother and grandmother, indubitably among the quintessential amateur genealogists of their time, introduced him to his maternal and paternal lineage. Whether it was by matriarchal design or some kind of genealogical osmosis, Tom's ancestral muses have deeply inspired him. As he grew up, they were larger than life and unwittingly became the creative foundation for his premiere novel.