A Cry Of Absence

by Madison Jones

Overview

In a 1987 article, Southern Magazine called Madison Jones's A Cry of Absence "the last pure tragedy written by a Southerner." Set in 1957 in a small Tennessee town just awakening to shifting racial and social attitudes, the novel concerns the inevitability of change and the consequences for those who resist it.
Hester Cameron Glenn, a proud, well-bred southern aristocrat, is the self-appointed guardian of her family's and her community's heritage. When a young black man is chained to a tree and stoned to death, Hester deplores the brutality of the act. Slowly she comes to suspect, and finally to know, who the real murderer is, and she decides what she must do to protect the family honor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807115794
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	09/01/1989
Series:	Voices of the South Series
Edition description:	Voices of the South ed
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Madison Jones is University Writer-in-Residence Emeritus at Auburn University and a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His other novels are The Innocent, Forest of the Night, A Buried Land, An Exile, Season of the Strangler, Passage Through Gehenna, and Last Things. He lives in Alabama.

Editorial Reviews

When an ``uppity'' black man is brutally murdered, the shock waves touch every doorstep of a small Southern town. ``This fine writer's insights into the problems of a Southern community make a suspenseful and interesting novel,'' praised PW. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly