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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Talk on the Quabbin Reservoir and BESIDE THE STILL WATERS

This is to announce that I will be speaking at the Agawam (Massachusetts) Public Library on my novel Beside the Still Waters and the destruction of four towns in Central Massachusetts for the building of the Quabbin Reservoir in the 1920s and 1930s.  I’ll be bring some poster-sized aerial photographs to illustrate the setting of the novel and the towns which were systematically dismantled.

More on the book:

Four towns, gone. Dismantled slowly while their inhabitants grieve for a history and heritage that has been voted away from them. The present threatens; the future belongs to the fearless.

Beside the Still Waters is a family saga based on an actual event which displaced four entire towns in central Massachusetts for the construction of a reservoir. Today, the Quabbin Reservoir provides water for millions of citizens, primarily in the greater Boston area.

Families are divided between those who protest the construction project, those who give up and leave, and those who help to build it. The central character is Jenny, a girl who comes of age facing the extinction of her community, who becomes the guardian of her family’s heritage, and ultimately, the one to decide what happens to them.

A rift between two brothers, Eli and John Vaughn, at the turn of the 20th Century continues through to the next generation as John tries to use Jenny, Eli’s daughter, in a plot to regain the family farm from Alonzo, who now runs it, who is Jenny's love. John is broke and eager to sell the farm to the state, which is buying up area property for the coming reservoir. Both Alonzo and Eli refuse to sell their properties, and protest removal by eminent domain. Torn between loyalty to her family and heritage, and the allure of a future beyond the valley, Jenny refuses to remain powerless like the men she loves, but looks for a way to take control. A disastrous decision may prove fatal in a race against time.

The talk is free to the public; please join us on Monday, April 4th at 7 p.m. at the Agawam Public Library, 750 Cooper Street, Agawam.


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