First Novel to Feature Melungeon Shantyboat People Is Published
Harriett Holmes was 15 and pregnant when in 1837 she boarded a Kentucky shantyboat that would become her home for the next decade. Life was difficult for many people during the 1800s, but it was especially so for Harriett’s family, because they were Melungeons, a mixed race with low social status.
Racial discrimination is one of the key themes of The Drifters, a new book that follows Harriett and her family through the Trail of Tears, the Civil War and Texas cattle drives. Redemption is another theme. Can a slave help Harriett and her family find solace, redemption and grace through God?
The Drifters: A Christian Historical Novel about the Melungeon Shantyboat People is the first novel to feature the Melungeon shantyboat people, a nearly forgotten ethnic group in American history. Tonya Holmes Shook of Hastings, Oklahoma, spent eighteen years researching and writing the book.
"The Drifters is a powerful book exploring the gamut of human emotions during the American Civil War and the Indian War years," says Dr. N. Brent Kennedy, author of Melungeon, The Resurrection of a Proud People: An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America and president of the Wellmont Foundation in Kingsport, Tennessee.
"Tonya’s gripping tale ... spills over to questions of race, ethnicity, and social class, and how these factors interact with the broader issues of right and wrong, good and evil. But perhaps most touchingly ...
The Drifters rides a theme of unrequited love, in this case a devotion that was not diminished by death nor the passing of time. A wonderful book!"
The Drifters is loosely based on the lives of Tonya’s 19th century relatives.
"It is based on word-of-mouth stories from descendants of Harriett Riddle Holmes, my great-great grandmother, who began her married life on a houseboat during the same year as the Trail of Tears," Tonya writes in the preface to her book. "She survived through the dire times of the Civil War, experienced heartaches relating to her sons William and Jasper, and relocated after the war to Texas, where some of her sons participated in cattle drives."
Tonya said she wrote the book partly because she had "a deep-seated passion to give a sensitive voice to those lost and forgotten people." She said she hopes readers will "gain new insight into the diversity of American culture" by uncovering the "hidden shame" associated with the persecution of the Melungeon people.
"This book grips your interest from start to finish, especially as you learn about the ability of these people to survive in spite of the utter disdain in which they were held while living in shantyboats on some of our nation’s major rivers," says Jo Ann Rowan of Gray, Tennessee.
The Drifters is 312 pages, includes eight pictures of Tonya’s 19th century relatives, and has a retail price of $19.95. Inquiries about book orders should be directed to Marquette Books.
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About the Author
Tonya Holmes Shook was born in Oklahoma and lived in New Mexico and Texas before returning to Oklahoma in 1985. She is author of Displaced Cherokee: Come Home, Come Home, a book documentary that took First Place in the 1986 Open Class Category at the Oklahoma State Fair. The book also was endorsed by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries. In addition to writing books, Tonya is an accomplished artist, poet and short story writer. Many of her works have Christian themes.
Tonya is available for media interviews and book signing. She can be reached at [email protected] or 580-439-6912. For information about stocking the book, please contact Marquette Books at the address below.
Marquette Books
3107 E. 62nd Avenue
Spokane, Washington 99223
509-443-7057 (voice)
509-448-2191 (fax)
[email protected]
http://www.marquettebooks.org/