Bøger af John Ehle

Set deep in the Appalachian wilderness between the years of 1779 and 1784, The Land Breakers is a saga like the Norse sagas or the book of Genesis, a story of first and last things, of the violence of birth and death, of inescapable sacrifice and the faltering emergence of community. Mooney and Imy Wright, twenty-one, former indentured servants, long habituated to backbreaking work but not long married, are traveling west. They arrive in a no-account settlement in North Carolina and, on impulse, part with all their savings to acquire a patch of land high in the mountains. With a little livestock and a handful of crude tools, they enter the mountain world-one of transcendent beauty and cruel necessity-and begin to make a world of their own.Mooney and Imy are the first to confront an unsettled country that is sometimes paradise and sometimes hell. They will soon be followed by others. John Ehle is a master of the American language. He has an ear for dialogue and an eye for nature and a grasp of character that have established The Land Breakers as one of the great fictional reckonings with the making of America.

It's the early 1800s and August King, a farmer in the mountains of Western North Carolina, encounters a runaway slave girl and finds himself facing a moral decision that could cost him his own freedom, property, and even his life.

It is late autumn when Collie Wright sees a man moving through the woods toward her cabin on the edge of the small mountain community where she lives alone with her baby. She gets out her butcher knife, puts Jonathan down, and waits. To her relief, the man turns out to be only a lost traveler with his young daughter.Recently widowed Wayland Jackson, with twelve-year-old daughter Paula, is on his way to Tennessee to practice his profession as a clockmaker. Strong-willed and independent, Collie takes the Jacksons in, steadfastly refusing to identify her baby's father. Wayland's gentleness and humor appeal to her; everything about Collie appeals to him. By mutual consent, he and Paula stay.The collusion is acknowledged by Collie's brothers, who take Wayland along on an exhilarating bear hunt, an initiation ceremony of sorts. On his return, Wayland sets up his clock making business, and he and Collie begin to think of marriage.But peace and contentment come to an end by the sudden appearance late one night at Collie's cabin of her baby's father, precipitating a violent showdown and the promise of further bloodshed-until Collie makes the most painful decision of her life.

A sixth-generation North Carolinian, highly-acclaimed author John Ehle grew up on former Cherokee hunting grounds. His experience as an accomplished novelist, combined with his extensive, meticulous research, culminates in this moving tragedy rich with historical detail.The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilization. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the "Principle People" residing at the center of the earth. But by the 18th century, some of their leaders believed it was necessary to adapt to European ways in order to survive. Those chiefs sealed the fate of their tribes in 1875 when they signed a treaty relinquishing their land east of the Mississippi in return for promises of wealth and better land. The U.S. government used the treaty to justify the eviction of the Cherokee nation in an exodus that the Cherokee will forever remember as the "trail where they cried." The heroism and nobility of the Cherokee shine through this intricate story of American politics, ambition, and greed.B & W photographs