| With light from
the flames, Wheeler Adams saw the black woman lying in front of the burning
doors. |
| "Mrs. Jackson,
get away from that door!" |
| The woman did
not move nor did she answer him. As Adams stumbled toward her one of the
lamps lost its grip on an overhead beam and fell into the pews. In the
parking lot someone shouted how best to attack the fire. The volunteers
were going to put a stream of water through the vestibule, and when they
did, those doors would certainly collapse on Jackson. Adams yelled for
them to hold up and for his trouble got a mouthful of smoke. Smoke was
everywhere, rolling off the ceiling, pushing down in black balls, looking
for new victims. The front of the building was completely engulfed in flames.
So were Jackson's feet. |
|
| "Lost in a night
of violence and confrontation, this story reflects the challenge of relationships
and the ethos of people struggling to live in a community fraught with
history, connection, love, and evil." |
| - Claudia Highbaugh |
| Chaplain, Harvard Divinity
School |
| "Reminiscent
of John Grisham, Brown's novel is told on two levels: a story of today's
race problems; the second, a journal from the years just after the Civil
War- a journal so real it may have been an actual accounting of those times." |
| - Jack R. Pyle |
| winner of AWA's Book of
the Year award |
| The Sound of Distant Thunder |
| "Fast-paced,
crowded with incident, Brown's tale of Southern church-burnings reads like
an action-movie scenario." |
| - Charles F. Price |
| author of Freedom's Altar |
| "The South didn't
die when the Stars and Bars came down. Steve Brown's Black Fire reminds
us that the issues are still alive today." |
| - Ann Brandt |
| author of Crowfoot Ridge |
