Michael Forth

The story opens with a boy recalling his birth on the hillside of Restwell, Virginia, as the smoke of a Civil War battle rose on the horizon. His father, grandfather, and uncle survive that night, but the father is later killed in a skirmish, leaving the child without a memory of his parent. Set against the uneasy backdrop of Reconstruction—referred to by locals as “Domination”—the narrator grows up hearing the language of surrender and new authority. The early chapters sketch a rural world still smoldering from conflict, where the rhythms of farm life clash with the lingering echo of gunfire.

A vivid scene unfolds as the boy sits by a fire with Daddy Guinea, a former slave now working the kitchen hearth. Their simple exchange over roasted sweet potatoes becomes a conduit for the child's first sense of the rich diversity and shared humanity among the Black community surrounding him. Through gentle, colloquial dialogue, the narrator begins to perceive race not as a list of stereotypes but as a broad, lived landscape, setting the tone for the reflective journey ahead.