Southland

On August 1, 1863 Charles Alfred West turned 15. As a gift, his mother gave him a fine leather bound journal. She told him to write in it every day. His father had gone off to fight the Blue Coats, and the journal would serve as a means for a son to tell his father all that had happened in his absence. In 1918, fifty-five years later, Mr. West is 70 years old and dying of cancer. The old journal is his legacy, and he bequeaths it to his children's children's children. But in the year...
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On August 1, 1863 Charles Alfred West turned 15. As a gift, his mother gave him a fine leather bound journal. She told him to write in it every day. His father had gone off to fight the Blue Coats, and the journal would serve as a means for a son to tell his father all that had happened in his absence. In 1918, fifty-five years later, Mr. West is 70 years old and dying of cancer. The old journal is his legacy, and he bequeaths it to his children's children's children. But in the year 1918 those old entries seem incomplete, and so he adds his thoughts to them. Within the pages are the stories of a 15-year-old boy and the memories of a 70-year-old man, written by the same hand, but separated by a lifetime.This is the story of Southland. It is the story of a blithe boy growing up on a plantation during the Civil War, and of the war he fights within himself as he becomes a man. It is a story of young love, illicit love, of chains and freedom, of good versus evil. It is the story of all of us.