The Novel (currently in revision)
This Is Not the Regency
The state of the United States in 1818, as seen through the eyes of various characters, especially Miss Sophie Forster, a white 28-year-old "spinster" living and working on her father's farm in central New York State. Through connections with Sophie, we encounter not only the pasts and desired futures of her siblings and parents, but others in her life who have lived quite differently. We meet their white head-man who has a secret, a free Black man looking for a place to settle, the wealthy white Virginian and his aristocratic English wife, along with her aimless brother and a few of the people their family holds enslaved, plus an aging Oneida man displaced by the New York occupiers, and a poor white war-widow who must now support herself. Along the way, others come and go and "daily reconstitute the world" (as Adrienne Rich said) around the Forsters and the new country. Like today, people eat and sleep, and love and grieve, and try to do the right thing imperfectly, or just get through the day.
Excerpt 2: From Chapter 10
Excerpt 3: From Chapter 22
