When
George Carver was born, the bells rang out and guns saluted welcoming the heir
to a wealthy Nashville landowner in the early 1900’s. That sense of entitlement
ran wild in his veins until his last breath.
A
charmer from the first, his life flowed through gilded paths. He married a belle
of Nashville’s social echelons, sired four promising children,
achieved business partnership with the charismatic
Lewis Shackleford – what more could one ask for?
Alas,
Mr. Shackleford was a bit too quietly ambitious and the company collapsed in
financial ruin. Rather than face the Nashville music, Mr. George Carver decided
to wipe clean the whole slate of his life to that point and move the family to
Memphis, a city regarded as culturally inferior in every way to Nashville.
Unfortunately, the move distorted the fabric of the family and like the child’s
game of upset-the-fruit basket, each one ended up in a different,
disquieting position.
Always a man whose thumb was firmly on the control
button, George seemed to ratchet up his need for dominance in this new situation
by snuffing out the wills of each family member, particularly in the realm of
relationships as he jealously winnowed suitors from the scene. The original
family circle, with the exception of young George who escaped to his death in
the war, remained magnetized in an unhealthy love-hate dynamic. The sisters
molted into a bizarrely adolescence state, set up housekeeping on their own and
flaunted their status by inappropriate dress and behavior while never missing a
chance for of patriarchal revenge. Philip also went to war and on to New York
City upon his return. All remained unmarried and when, later in life, George has
a chance at re-marriage, the familial chickens come home to roost with a
cackling vengeance.
The
narrator of the story, Philip, through a journal-like account, attempts to
assure us of his ascendance over family problems and particularly his father’s
manipulation, by showing us how he has escaped it all moving to New York City
and establishing his own antique book business and live-in companion. But like a
tightly-stretched rubber band, he keeps zinging back to Memphis at every
“summons” of his sisters. And upon return, the good intentions of forgiveness
melt away at the first glimpse of his father waving on the tarmac – perhaps
greeting, perhaps guiding the plane and his soul into submission.
It is
a Southern tale of land, wealth, bondage, manners, dress and social standing. It
moves from the acclamation of church bells to total humiliation. It embraces
hope, revenge, forgiveness and disingenuous acceptance. Yet through it all the
reader recognizes abruptly that from the best of intentions, humans strive and
fail and strive again – loving all the while with heady blends of adoration and
revulsion. And through the view from Memphis, Mr. Taylor summons us all to look
into that internal mirror of past, present and imperfect tense.
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