This is Part 1 of a 4 part novel about a woman born in the backwoods in 1900. In those days, women couldn’t vote, drink in public, or speak their minds outside of their homes. Most women anyway, but one thing for sure, Margaret Rose Nolan, wasn’t most women. Born into north Appalachian’s piedmont, she knew what she wanted, and it wasn’t to live in the backwoods of Alabama surrounded by poverty and ignorance. She didn’t care what women were supposed to do or what others thought of her; she followed a single-minded purpose — create opportunities for the things she desired. If getting what she wanted required manipulating men, then that was too bad for them. It wasn’t her fault men liked her, but she used it and used it well. In those days, women called her a Jezebel. She called them ignorant. She moved from moonshine to champagne, from rowboats to cruise ships, from foolish foothill suitors to society’s elite, usually at the expense of others, even her own children.
Pat Conroy, my first cousin, and I spent time in our grandmother’s ‘big house’ in Atlanta. Pat and I traveled together to Piedmont, Alabama, to research our family history. I spent many summers visiting with the people who knew Margaret when she was young. Much later in life, our ailing grandmother came to live with my wife and me for more than a year. She regaled us with tales of her life. This book is a fictionalized account of her life. She lived the life as told, but just like her, the story has to have some lies and exaggerations, or it wouldn’t be our grandmother. $0.99 on Kindle.
