About the Author:
Pope Brock was born in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated from Harvard in 1971. After training as an actor, he became a journalist, writing for Esquire, GQ and Life.
From Kirkus Reviews:
A deft blend of fact and fiction vividly re-creates a 90-year-old family scandal. Working from clues dropped by a great-aunt and newspaper clippings unearthed by a cousin, freelance journalist and first-time author Brock tells the story of his great-grandfather, Ham Dillon, and the adulterous affair that led to his violent death. Ham, a hail-fellow-well-met farmer/politician, and Luke Hale, a somewhat older and rather staid schoolteacher and minor government clerk, married sisters, Maggie and Allie Thompson. Allie, the elder of the two, found her young brother-in-law's charm irresistible and in 1905 began an affair with him that lasted for three years and produced one child. Given the demands of running a turn-of-the-century household and the lack of privacy in rural Indiana, well documented here, the couples resourcefulness in arranging trysts is impressive. Luke, suspicious since the child's birth, discovered the truth in 1908 and shot Ham to death. In the trial that followed, he pleaded temporary insanity. Though court transcripts were destroyed, the author found extensive press coverage of the case. ``Facts formed a line of buoys in the sea of my imagination,'' he writes, explaining his technique. Brock succeeds in creating convincing courtroom scenes featuring the skilled oratory of the lawyers for both sides, and the testimony on insanity makes absorbing reading. The story of Ham and Maggie's courtship is enriched by details of Indiana life and customs, although the character of the wronged wife is fuzzier than those of other three principals. Adultery, murder, a climactic trial, and old-fashioned clothesperfect source material for a TV docudrama. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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