Tobacco Styx Bridge

Book excerpt: Charles Abell takes a journey into the past. This Dean of Southern Maryland College, who debuted in the novel, Cuckold Creek, becomes immersed in a family mystery after he listens to an oral history tape recorded by his mother before her death. As though she is speaking from the grave, his mother's words haunt him, launching him on an investigation of an incident in his family's past. The family mystery, revealed in a painting, sends Charles on a search for truth about life at Elysium, the family farm overlooking the historic Port Tobacco Valley. The story revolves around a lynching in 1896, planned at a baseball game and carried out by upstanding members of the community. While he is caught in an undertow of problems at the institution he has helped to build, Charles is brought to the brink of personal and professional failure when Southern Maryland College faces devastating financial loss. It could lose its accreditation and be forced to close; Charles is helpless to stop it until a postcard arrives in the mail with a cryptic instruction that alters the course of his life.