Children of Secrets

In his extravagantly intimate
autobiographical novel, Lander Duncan reconstructs the heart
shattering images and remembrances of the dark, violent, and
incoherent first two decades of his life. PROMISES Seduced
by CJ, a sleek-framed Tuskegee cadet, the mixed-race
diabolically beautiful Abigail, who is the fifteen-year-old
daughter of the dean of faculty, sets this novel in motion
when she becomes pregnant. With a reluctant agreement from
her father, Abigail marries CJ and defiantly departs for his
family farm in the Arkansas Delta. CJ reports for active
duty to a segregated Ft. Huachuca in Arizona. As a powerful
chronicle of a time, the novel's sobering historical
backdrop is dramatically revealed through Abigail's culture
collisions and misadventures intersecting with the harsh,
alienating, and unpredictable Delta life and the racial
indignities and clashes that CJ confronts while commanding a
combat anti-demolition company in Europe. SECRETS After
returning home a war hero, humiliation and bitterness eat
away at CJ who must take a demeaning job as a railroad Red
Cap to support his family. CJ's offer of a steadying hand to
a white woman who stumbles as she gets off a train turns
into an incident that produces a night of horror. The lives
and fate of the Duncan family are forever changed. Exiled to
a small, racially divided Pennsylvania town, Abigail,
emotionally damaged by the ordeal, compels Lander and his
brothers to promise never to reveal anything about their
frightening past. Abigail's habit of hiding things-even
losses, disappointments, humiliations, and racial
identity-becomes a great burden that keeps her sons' lives
in upheaval. CONFESSIONS Abandoned by his mother and
estranged for more than a decade from his family, Lander is
summoned home for the last few days of Abigail's life. Past
informs present, and present recasts past; the brothers
exchange stories that trace the vast emotional terrain of
havoc their mother so thoughtlessly wrecked, the sense of
confusion that shifted beneath their feet, the doors of
self-perception that slammed in their face. They want
desperately to love Abigail in all her flawed, outrageous
humanity and find an opportunity to forgive the felonies she
committed against them. A memorable cast emerges in poignant
and too few moments of triumph. Sifting through Abigail's
possessions, an undated letter is discovered that produces a
damning and destructive secret.