ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 6, 1997 TAG: 9704070020
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: BOOK REVIEW
BOOKMARKS
Landmark history is now available
Reviewed by GEORGE KEGLEY
``A Seed-bed of the Republic Early Botetourt.'' By Robert Douthat Stoner. Delmar Publishing Co. $48.
Researchers, genealogists and students of Botetourt County history have reason to rejoice. ``A Seed-bed of the Republic Early Botetourt,'' Robert D. Stoner's landmark study of the beginnings of this old county, is back in print after more than 16 years. The history of a county that once stretched from Fincastle to the Wisconsin border had been out of print since the late 1970s. Stoner died in 1980. This third printing is the work of Stoner's two grandsons, Robert Stoner Holt of Richmond and George Edwin Holt of Raleigh, N.C.
Library copies of ``Seed-bed'' were wearing thin. ``It's the most definitive history we have of our county, and it's used every day,'' said Dottie Kessler, a researcher in the clerk of courts office in Fincastle. The book is used often by people doing research, she said.
E.B. Swem, the College of William and Mary scholar who wrote the foreword for ``Seed-bed'' in 1962, knew what he was talking about when he said: ``Considering Virginia history from a purely local point of view, there is a vital need for the present residents of Botetourt, and especially for the young people, to have something in print to help them keep in memory the early days, so fraught with hard labor and plain living, the terror of Indian wars and the turmoil of the Revolution.''
The history of more than 600 pages contains a wealth of material telling the county's story, from its geology to settlement, frontier Indian wars, forts, contributions to the Revolution, early roads, taverns, the three courthouses, inventories, elections, prominent citizens, churches, schools and early Botetourt homes. Valuable maps and pictures of early houses add to the story, and a 1772 list of tithables (taxpayers) was reproduced from the clerk's office.
Stoner drew from the earliest Botetourt court records, some tied with strings of deer hide, to tell of an era when thousands of settlers came through the county on their way west in their search for land. When the county was created in 1770, its westernmost residents on the waters of the Mississippi River were exempted from taxes because they lived so far from the courthouse.
Stoner's 21 years as clerk of court for the county gave him a unique perspective in scanning and interpreting the records. When the history was published, a reviewer said of him, ``Unarguably, no one living in Botetourt today knows more of its past.''
The Holt brothers brought out Stoner's work again because, in the words of Ed Holt of Raleigh, ``We had gotten indications there might be a demand. This was a good way to honor our grandfather.''
When he was a small boy, he recalls, ``we gathered around the dining room table on Sunday afternoons to help sort index cards'' for the history.
The first edition was sponsored by the late Edmund P. Goodwin, Roanoke savings and loan executive and historian, in the name of the Roanoke Historical Society. Proceeds were used to help start the Botetourt County Museum in Fincastle.
When ``Seed-bed'' appeared 34 years ago, Paxton Davis, Roanoke Times book editor, called it ``a solid cornerstone for the re-evaluation of the role of Southwest Virginia in the growth of the commonwealth. This is local history as its best.''
As Botetourt looks back over its more than two and a quarter centuries, there is a need for a continuation of Stoner's work. Much of the county's history from the later 19th century and all of the 20th century has not been written.
The book may be ordered from Seed-Bed Partners, Box 500, Fincastle, VA 24090, for $55.11, which includes shipping.
GEORGE KEGLEY is a retired business editor for this newspaper.
Saga of family love and loyalty presented with originality and grace
Reviewed by BARBARA M. DICKINSON
CLOUD CHAMBER. By Michael Dorris. Scribner. $24.
``It's an odd thing how your life can change in the wisp of a breeze,'' says Martin McGarry.
Michael Dorris tells us how lives do change in the Mannion-McGarry clan, but he takes more than 315 pages to do so in his new book, ``Cloud Chamber.'' Hardly a wisp of a book. For Dorris devotees who succumbed to his debut novel (``Yellow Raft in Blue Water'') 10 years ago, ``Cloud Chamber'' will answer many questions as it returns to the family at the center of that story. This reader has yet to see that first publication but found ``Cloud Chamber'' masterfully written and thoroughly engrossing.
This is the extraordinary saga of Rose Mannion (who marries Martin McGarry and changes his life in the aforementioned wisp of a breeze) and her descendants. Dorris takes his reader from late 19th-century Ireland to 20th-century Kentucky and Montana, with detours to Seattle, Canada and Germany. And he does this with effortless grace.
Each of Rose's offspring demands and controls a chapter. Thus each chapter is told with a voice as different and unique as the character doing the dreamweaving. Dorris draws each man and woman meticulously, sympathetically and with generous humor. Every nuance of whim, quirk, personal strength, weakness is revealed. That is the mark of a fine writer.
This reviewer enjoyed the book as a rare good read, a great yarn well written. If a piece of literature were a three-dimensional artwork, ``Cloud Chamber'' would be a tapestry, rich with knots and ties and jewel-like interlocking threads against a background of familial love and loyalty.
Let's hope it will not be 10 years before Michael Dorris unveils his considerable talents once again.
BARBARA M. DICKINSON devotes much of her time to her own literary efforts.
Gushy memoir does little to improve Fergie's image
Reviewed by LYNN ECKMAN
SARAH THE DUCHESS OF YORK: My Story. By Sarah Ferguson and Jeff Coplon. Simon & Schuster. $24.
When Sarah Ferguson married Prince Andrew 10 years ago, she was a 26-year-old working for a publishing firm. Even though her background was privileged, she could not be considered royal and knew nothing about the demands life in Buckingham Palace would place upon her.
At first, ``Fergie'' was greeted by the press as a gust of fresh air. She was admired and applauded to the point that she began to believe in the public persona she read about - up to a point. Within herself, Sarah felt unsure of who she was and how to act. Always wishing to please everyone, she ended by pleasing no one and disgracing the monarchy. No one could berate her more than the duchess herself does, and her self-flagellation grows tiring indeed in this memoir.
Equally difficult to accept are her complaints about money, or the lack thereof. From her first two children's books she earned ``only $500,000 in seven years.''
Everyone exposed to the media is well aware of Sarah's fall from grace, her divorce and her recent attempts to establish herself in this country, where she is appearing in a television spot to advertise cranberry juice. While part of us may cheer her efforts and her valor, another part must rue how she and other once-mighty personages have fallen. And I, for one, regret her inability, or Jeff Coplin's, to express herself without gushing.
LYNN ECKMAN-teaches English as a second language as a volunteer for the Office of Immigration and Refugee Services.
Undercover DEA agents lead dangerous lives
Reviewed by PAUL E. FITZGERALD
THE LAST FAMILY. By John Ramsey Miller. Bantam. $21.95.
``A man might show up someday. He'll probably be alone. He might say he is an old friend. He might have an official vehicle or identification. He might not be armed and he might seem friendly. He might ask nicely, or he might remove your skin with a straight razor while he asks. He'll be here to kill me.''
Those words, uttered to a close relative by Paul Masterson, a retired and grievously wounded DEA agent, are the opening of the last act in an ageless scenario that forever lurks when dangerous and determined men from whatever side slip beyond the thin lines of rule or reason and invoke the chilling threat, ``We know where you live!''
In an amazing and rewarding first novel, John Ramsey Miller has crafted a terrifying tale of double-crosses, coldly calculated gambles with the lives of innocents and their carefully planned executions. Martin Fletcher, a sadistic CIA-trained asset who is assigned to a DEA elite force as a specialist in terrorism, is being described as the most resourceful and horrifying killer since Hannibal Lecter.
It is no surprise that The Literary Guild named this book a Main Selection.
The tale begins in a horrifying scene on a mountaintop in Tennessee and ends on the darkened waters of New Orleans' Lake Pontchartrain in a violent midnight storm. Miller deals in the mirrored world of illusion and terror that is home to undercover operatives. He has most of it down pat: the awesome technology, the resources that can be brought to bear, the language, the culture, jurisdictional in-fighting, the politics, and the dancing shuffle at the top levels.
There are a few infield bobbles, however. If DEA as used here is intended to designate the drug enforcement organization that is known and loved in back streets here and in barrios below the Border, the ``A'' in DEA stands for Administration (not Agency). The outfit is headed by an administrator (not a director), and years ago gave up regions as operational entities (now calling them divisions).
But that is just quibbling. I felt at home and among friends, tempted here and there to put a known face to a given character - or at least to some aspects of a character.
Miller is a former journalist, advertising copy writer and visual artist. He is a native of Mississippi who now lives in North Carolina with his wife and sons, writing full time. We will hear more from this neighbor, and I, for one, am looking forward to it.
PAUL E. FITZGERALD retired from the Drug Enforcement Administration as chief of communication services.
Disaster looms on airline
Reviewed by MARK ROWH
MEDUSA'S CHILD. By John J. Nance. Doubleday. $23.95.
``Medusa's Child'' is one of those books that gets better as it goes along. By the time you're a few chapters from the end, you'll find yourself staying up late to finish it.
Author John Nance, who also wrote ``Pandora's Box,'' could pare some cliches from his work, but as a real-life airline pilot he knows aviation and writes convincingly about flying. Combine this with a definite knack for building suspense, and Nance shows he is not a one-book wonder.
In ``Medusa's Child,'' the crew of an airliner discovers the plane is hauling a nuclear bomb set to detonate within a few hours. Not only is it rigged to avoid defusing, but when the bomb goes off it will send out an electromagnetic wave that may destroy every computer chip and electronic device in America. The crew - and the Pentagon, the president and others - find themselves searching frantically for a way to prevent the biggest disaster of the century.
MARK ROWH works at New River Community College.
LENGTH: Long : 200 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Sarahby CNB