Down the River is an historical novel based on the murders of two of my ancestors in Kentucky in 1813 in a dispute over ownership of slaves. I tell this story through the eyes of the only eyewitness, the slave Phyllis. She relates the story of her life on the frontier in much the same way as Chiyo in Memoirs of a Geisha, Miss Jane Pittman, and the African American novelists of the 19th Century. She learns that life is full of good things that are bad and bad things that are good.

Phyllis is the property of David Morgan, a Virginia slave holder who settles eastern Kentucky in 1800. The slave experience on the Kentucky frontier is the same and different than the common image of cotton and cane plantations and the narrative may surprise readers with the details.

Phyllis grows up an orphan with blue eyes and fair skin and she is never truly embraced by the tiny slave community of the Morgan farm. The manipulative Morgan arrives one hot day with a mate for her – the love of her life – and uses her as an agent of his own ambitions. When Morgan’s plans for her do not go as planned, her husband is sold away. Then she is held for the Morgans’ murder. She escapes the lynch mob, but not before her two young children and the rest of her community is loaded onto boats for Mississippi.

The story recalls real slave narratives such as Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass. In fact, Phyllis was a slave in Floyd County, Kentucky in 1813 when her owners, David and William Morgan were murdered by Edward Osborn.

The novel is now in development as a movie with Antares Media Group of London.

Down The River was selected as a semifinalist in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award contest in 2008 and is also available for the Kindle.