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Could you turn down reading a book that starts like this?
In the summer of 1866 I went down South to find and kill a man. It’s not what I would have chosen, and when I first arrived in the territory, I didn’t want to admit that’s what I was about. Nevertheless, I was well suited to the task—by my past and by the shadows it cast in my soul.
Based loosely on western North Carolina’s 1863 Shelton Laurel Massacre, when 13 suspected Union sympathizers were executed by Confederate troops, the novel follows Union veteran Jacob Vance as he seeks out the murderer under cover as a government employee interviewing veterans who qualify for disability payment.
It’s hard to drop this novel neatly into a slot. You get a good dose of grisly battle and hospital scenes alongside lyrical descriptions of the mountains; men and women who can be trusted and those who can’t; real murderers and ghost murderers.
When you’re done with the novel, and with the author’s notes, you’ll be satisfied. Roberts has a musical ear for language, a painter’s eye for mountain beauty and a way of handing his readers a “happy ending” that feels hard-earned but deserved. There’s not much more a reader could ask for.
Terry Roberts. That Bright Land. (Turner Publishing Co., 2016). 322 pp.
The story above first appeared in our May/June 2021 issue.
