The end of the decade (circa 1866-1876) officially called Reconstruction in the United States of America was the beginning, in the South, of a period almost a century long in which segregation and racial hatred perpetuated the worst evils of slavery. Warm Winds Over the Yazoo is a historical novel set in the early years of this dark period. The primary story thread unfolds unhurriedly, beginning in a white community and moving to a segregated community where blacks and whites co-exist quietly in conditions that they consider much safer and pleasanter than other areas of Mississippi. But the peace is ephemeral; as the work progresses, even major characters are dwarfed by the massive forces that engulf them. Beyond the plot that traces events in human lives, Warm Winds is a saga of early post-Reconstruction South. The author's careful research has resulted in a work that presents verifiable historical and social issues, and his education in the behavioral sciences is evident in sound psychological commentary and social criticism. Prejudice, suspicion, and distrust exist among people of the same ethnic background as well as between different races, while affection, respect, and generosity surface among and between all sorts of people. As he airs racial tensions, the author gives people on both sides of the fence opportunities to defend their positions, tenable and untenable. Moral and ethical issues that play out in the novel are timeless and universal: hostility generated by cultural and geographical differences; conflict between personal conviction and the need to observe society's mores; the dangerous line between ingenuity and deception in the silent resistance to unfair laws; lies told to avert violence, bloodshed, and heart-crushing anguish; political manipulation and deception; the creation of the pack; ignorance that plays into the hands of greed and injustice; a corrupt criminal justice system. Vivid details of topography and geography, along with routes and landmarks, create a countryside that quickly becomes familiar to the reader. Nature serves also as a source of symbolism and analogy: the majestic Yazoo and the evolution of the seasons, the fierce thunderstorm and the tornado that destroys everything in its path, forests of tall pines and fields of maturing cotton, meadows of wild flowers, the clouds, the moon-all carry metaphysical meaning. The author's interest in people and their stories results in a large number and variety of characters, and in many life stories that while not directly connected to the story thread are vitally connected to the unfolding saga. And the reader gets to the end of the novel with the sense that this is not the end. Once more has been vividly brought to life a slice of American history that reminds us, in the popular words of William Shakespeare that the "past is prologue" . . . "to the swelling act" (The Tempest and Macbeth).
