The Blue Heron — Gene Farrington

Dear Reader, You are about to embark on a journey that will take you to Jamestown, Virginia; the Chesapeake Bay; Washington, D.C.; London; Munich; Avignon and various other spots in between -- in the here and now. You will also observe Jacobin London and the founding of the Jamestown colony in the 17th Century. You will get insights about what was happening from a David and a Molly from both the past and the present -- contemporary David is writing a novel about that other David, the one from the 17th Century; and Molly is transcribing the diary of that other Molly, the one who is her ancestor and a member of the Jamestown colony. There is also the narrative of a Native American, Opechancanough, who was taken to Spain as a young man and educated in the ways of the white man. How is it possible that he inserts himself in the here and now to become very important to Molly and David's narratives? Gene Farrington mashes the past and the present as only a postmodern novelist can, always conscious of the impact of words, even as he fractures time and melds characters in such intricate ways that you will be amazed at how time means nothing… how the traits and qualities of ancestors get passed along -- through time, through blood. By breathing life into historical figures as well as the fictional ones, Farrington forces us to reconsider: what is history… what is fate?