Escaped Alone

The Greatest Generation made our world safe for democracy—and then sired a generation that began transforming our nation into one that was safe for diversity. Escaped Alone transports the reader to mid-20th-century Virginia—to a time when the American South was experiencing its Last Hurrah. As a society struggles to return to its prewar stability, the slower-paced mode of living for the very young remains sheltered and in many ways idyllic, allowing ample time to savor the joys of childhood. Yet accompanying this pleasant existence is a darker undercurrent of institutionalized injustice that gradually awakens one child to the ugliness of racial, religious and lifestyle discrimination within her community. Departure for college provides the opportunity to begin her search for a more tolerant mode of living. The tale of her development into one who will seize this opportunity is punctuated by abundant humor, occasional horror, the emergence from the closet of some wildly animated family skeletons, and a generous outlay of unmistakably Southern storytelling. Its entertainment value aside, Escaped Alone may well be the first in-depth chronicling of exactly how a new kind of American conscience was formed.