The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers

The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

Taut, almost unbearable suspense . . . This galvanizing historical portrait of courage, determination, and abiding love mesmerizes and shocks. --Booklist (starred review)

All I had known for certain when I came around the hen house that first evening in July and saw my husband trudging into the yard after lifetimes spent away from us, a borrowed bag in his hand and the shadow of grief on his face, was that he had to be protected at all costs from knowing what had happened in his absence. I did not believe he could survive it.

When Major Gryffth Hockaday is called to the front lines of the Civil War, his new bride is left to care for her husband's three-hundred-acre farm and infant son. Placidia, a mere teenager herself living far from her family and completely unprepared to run a farm or raise a child, must endure the darkest days of the war on her own. By the time Major Hockaday returns two years later, Placidia is bound for jail, accused of having borne a child in his absence and murdering it. What really transpired in the two years he was away?

Inspired by a true incident, this saga conjures the era with uncanny immediacy. Amid the desperation of wartime, Placidia sees the social order of her Southern homeland unravel as her views on race and family are transformed. A love story, a story of racial divide, and a story of the South as it fell in the war, The Second Mrs. Hockaday reveals how that generation--and the next--began to see their world anew.

Rivers, Susan: - Susan Rivers began her writing career as a playwright, receiving the Julie Harris Playwriting Award and the New York Drama League Award, working as an NEA Writer-in-Residence in San Francisco, and being named as a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award for British and American Women Playwrights. Her debut novel, The Second Mrs. Hockaday, was a People Magazine Best New Books Pick and a Woman's Day Editor's Desk Pick in 2017, as well as an Indie Next pick, Library Reads, Winter OKRA Pick and WNBA Great Group Reads 2018 Selection. The novel was a finalist for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize 2017 and for the Southern Book Prize 2018. Rivers lives with her husband in a former cotton-mill town in upstate South Carolina.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781616205812
ISBN 10	1616205814
Title	The Second Mrs. Hockaday
Author	Susan Rivers
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Algonquin Books
Year published	2017-01-10
Number of pages	271
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.