Kruse's Keys: Read "Right-Hand Shores" to See One Community's Post-Civil War Struggle to Find Its Place in the World.

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One afternoon two weeks ago, this book appeared on the crowded counter in the upstairs library of our home.  Neither Emily nor I had ever seen it.  

I leafed through the description and was intrigued by the endorsements on the back--one author called him a "novelists' novelist"--that caught my eye since one of my favorite writers James Salter is often called a "writers' writer.

I asked around the house. Did this book get lost in the shuffle of our Christmas bounty?  Queries to our extended family yielded no clarity.  It remains a mystery.  The only thing to do was to open to page 1.

I'm glad I did.

Reading Tilghman's writing is effortless--which means he's both incredibly talented and works hard at it.  His 2012 tale (one of 4 in a series I found out later) of a family's doomed (cursed?) farm on the Eastern shore stretches across generations from the Civil War and through to reconstruction.  He creates deep characters that bring the complex community surrounding the farm to life as he not only captures the entangled master-slave dynamic but also the fraught relationship between farm owner and newly freed men following the Civil War.  That he unfolds this story through the backdrop of the main character's scientific obsession with creating a peach farm comprised of thousands of trees is remarkable.  

Looking for book ideas? Check out our 2024,  2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 reading lists!