Tremain Family Saga Books In Publication Order
- Standing at the Scratch Line (1998)
- Echoes of a Distant Summer (2002)
Tremain Family Saga Book Covers
Guy Johnson Books Overview
Standing at the Scratch Line
Raised in the steamy bayous of New Orleans in the early 1900s, LeRoi ‘King’ Tremain, caught up in his family’s ongoing feud with the rival DuMont family, learns to fight. But when the teenage King mistakenly kills two white deputies during a botched raid on the DuMonts, the Tremains’ fear of reprisal forces King to flee Louisiana.
King thus embarks on an adventure that first takes him to France, where he fights in World War I as a member of the segregated 369th Battalion in the bigoted army he finds himself locked in combat with American soldiers as well as with Germans. When he returns to America, he battles the Mob in Jazz Age Harlem, the KKK in Louisiana, and crooked politicians trying to destroy a black township in Oklahoma.
King Tremain is driven by two principal forces: He wants to be treated with respect, and he wants to create a family dynasty much like the one he left behind in Louisiana. This is a stunning debut by novelist Guy Johnson that provides a true depiction of the lives of African Americans in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Echoes of a Distant Summer
You done lived a tough life, boy, and I know I m part responsible for that. I ain t askin you to excuse me or forgive me. Just know I did the best I knew to do. I was just tryin to make you tough enough to deal with the world. To stand tall among men, I knew you had to be strong and have yo own mind. You were preparing me for war, Grandfather. Guy Johnson, the author of the critically acclaimed debut Standing at the Scratch Line, continues the Tremain family saga. Jackson St. Clair Tremain hasn t spoken to his grandfather King in nearly twenty years. Disgusted by the violence and bloodlust that seemed to be his grandfather’s way of life, Jackson chose to distance himself from King and live a simpler life. But now King is gravely ill, and his impending death places Jackson s life as well as those of his family and friends in jeopardy. Reluctantly, Jackson travels to Mexico to see King. But after a brief reconciliation, his grandfather is assassinated, and Jackson suspects that his grandmother Serena may have had a hand in it. Jackson takes control of King s organization, and as he does, he reflects on the summers he spent in Mexico as a child and the lessons he learned there at the knee of his strong willed, complex grandfather. In Echoes of a Distant Summer, Guy Johnson introduces us to a new hero, Jackson St. Clair Tremain, who learns that, like his grandfather, he must be willing to protect those he loves at all costs. From the Hardcover edition.
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