Beulah Hill - Hardcover

Heffernan, William

3.56

64 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684862263 ISBN 13: 9780684862262

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2001

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Set against the vivid backdrop of the 1930s, the story of a white man who was murdered on land owned by the last remaining black family in a small town captures the prejudice, forbidden eroticism, and diffuculties of the time. 25,000 first printing.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

William Heffernan, a solid craftsman when it comes to the thriller genre (Red Angel, The Dinosaur Club), changes pace with this thoughtful, beautifully detailed novel about race relations in Depression-era Vermont. Beulah Hill is better known as Nigger Hill, and its patriarch, Jehiel Flood, is a proud black farmer whose daughter Elizabeth, the local schoolteacher, has been loved since childhood by Samuel Bradley, now constable of Jerusalem's Landing. When the murdered body of Royal Firman turns up on Nigger Hill, Samuel is called to investigate. He may look white, but the victim's family and friends still taunt him with the epithet that denotes the result of three generations of miscegenation; "bleached" he may be, but according to Vermont law Samuel is as white as the Firmans, and tracking the killer of a white man on property owned by the last black family in the town is an uphill battle. Heffernan limns Samuel's inner conflicts with the same hard- edged clarity he brings to his portrayal of the icy landscape of Vermont in winter as his protagonist grapples with a truth he cannot bear to bring to light. This moody meditation on a little-known piece of history is hardly a thriller, but that shouldn't deter Heffernan's regular readers from discovering what else he can do besides spin a well-paced yarn: tell a small story with style, grace, and a decidedly literary talent. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

William Heffernan, who was an award-winning journalist and was nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, is the author of fifteen novels, including such bestsellers as The Corsican, Blood Rose, Corsican Honor, Tarnished Blue (winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1996), The Dinosaur Club (a New York Times bestseller), and Cityside. He lives in Vermont with his wife and three sons.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.