Raintree County Author:Ross Lockridge Jr When Southern belle Susanna Drake visits Indiana, she falls for John Wickliff Shawnessy, an abolitionist with strong ideals. However, John falters while he lets Drake tempt him away from his true love, Nell Gaither. After Drake deceives John into marriage, the two move to her New Orleans household, where he discovers that mental illness runs in ... more »her family. When the Civil War begins, John uses it to escape from the unhappy marriage.
Throughout a single day in 1892, John Shawnessy recalls the great moments of his lifeĀfrom the love affairs of his youth in Indiana, to the battles of the Civil War, to the politics of the Gilded Age, to his homecoming as schoolteacher, husband, and father. Shawnessy is the epitome of the place and period in which he lives, a rural land of springlike women, shady gamblers, wandering vagabonds, and soapbox orators. Yet here on the banks of the Shawmucky River, which weaves its primitive course through Raintree County, Indiana, he also feels and obeys ancient rhythms. A number-one bestseller when it was first published in 1948, this powerful novel is a compelling vision of 19th-century America with timeless resonance.« less