Power in the Blood: Land, Memory, and a Southern Family [VINTAGE 1997] [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

Fine unread condition white boards, blue spine and gold spine lettering contained in a fine condition price-clipped photographic dust jacket. Includes List of Other Books by John Bentley Mays; Author Dedication; About This Book; Introduction: The Secret Hoard; Sources and Acknowledgments. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs. Also includes a fine condition vintage October 4, 1997 newspaper book review article from The Globe and Mail by Don Gillmor reviewing Power in the Blood, the article entitled South Rises Again In Family Meditation. "John Bentley Mays is one of the most powerful voices to speak of an out of the Deep South. Power in the Blood chronicles a journey of immense poignancy and resonance." - Anne Rivers Siddons. "A marvel of literary architectonics, Power in the Blood shimmers with passion and intelligence. Few books meditate on so much - history, place, the evolving self - with such elegance. But then, few writers possess John Bentley Mays' gift of probity bound up in sweet lyricism." - Charles Foran. "John Bentley Mays may have found his place in Canada but his blood is thick with Deep South truth. Power in the Blood is simply a remarkable book - brilliantly written and as accurate a portrayal of the South as anyone is ever likely to pen." - Terry Kay. "Both passionate and reflective, romantic and well researched. An odyssey of roots and change." - Lois Battle. "John Bentley Mays gives us a new view of the South, unbiased by the old view. It's as if he read everything written about the South and forgot it, or dismissed it all as cliche. Power in the Blood is a memoir of quivering beauty and truth." - Janice Daugharty. "An extraordinary narrative and honest exploration of the heart of the real American South, Power in the Blood is the account of one man's rediscovery of his Southern roots and heritage, forgotten during decades of self-exile from his homeland. John Bentley Mays left his ancestral region because, like many members of his generation, he believed a larger, more interesting life awaited him beyond the American South. The distance he put between himself and his Southern homeland widened until he eventually settled in Canada and into modern metropolitan life. Decades later, on a spring morning in 1990, the death of Mays' Aunt Vandalia summons him back to the South. As a result of his fateful return, Mays experiences an awakening of feelings and attitudes linked to his early life and family heritage, and he begins an exploration of his past. The secrets he uncovers in Vandalia's home motivate him to search for answers through the Virginia tidewater forests his ancestors cleared, the colonial plantations of his distant antebellum relatives, and the towns in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana where they lived through almost four hundred years of American history. Along the route of his journey he encounters echoes of Faulkner, remnants of civil war, and the spirits of colonial-era roads now laden with strip malls. And like many before him whose ties to their homelands have been broken, Mays struggles with the facts, stereotypes, and contradictions that exist today and color his native cultural landscape. Power in the Blood is about memory and recollection, and about the land that defines the blood and soul of a family over time. Above all, it is the poignant tale of an encounter with the American past as it emerges during a search for the truth of one family." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.…