Controversy Surrounds The Release Of Sing Of The High Country," An Expose Of New Englands Bloody Past

PublishAmerica, LLLP, announces release of "Sing Of The High Country," Jonathan Adam DeCoteau's controversial fictional treatment of New England plantations, reservations, and racial history.

(PRWEB) August 19, 2004 -- PublishAmerica, LLLP, a Baltimore-based digital publisher, recently announced the August, 2004 release of "Sing Of The High Country," the controversial debut story collection by Abrahms Award-winning author Jonathan Adam DeCoteau. According to press release materials, this is the first novel-in-stories yet published to challenge New Englanders to accept their role in the darkest sins of Americas past.

And what sins are these, exactly? Among other allegations, the author presents perhaps the first fictional re-creation of a New England plantation, complete with soulful slaves and a cruel taskmaster. Such subject matter is normally the terrain of Southern slave narratives.

New England slave plantations did exist," Mr. DeCoteau states. Perhaps the greatest myth of slavery is that New England employed slaves only in industrial capacities, while the South was the exclusive home of plantation slavery."

Mr. DeCoteau goes on to cite an article in a September, 2002 Northeast Magazine issue that stated regional archeologists thought they might have uncovered what could be a 13,000-acre plantation that covered wide parts of Connecticut.

Slavery was a real presence in colonial New England," Mr. DeCoteau adds. And I wanted my story 'Night Journey To The Land Of Uz' to capture that. Im not saying that all the stories are entirely historically accurate, only that their spirit of re-envisioning New Englands checkered past is."

"Sing Of The High Country," which chronicles the rise and fall of a family-owned tobacco farm from the colonial days to the present, also sheds light on the fact that Native Americans, such as the famed Pequot tribe of the region, endured slavery and some of the earliest Indian Reservations in the country.

When I learned of Indian reservations," Mr. DeCoteau comments, I learned of reservations out west far more than of those that existed in the East. Im trying to use the power of narrative to emphasize that we must all share responsibility for the darkest chapters of our nations history, instead of adopting a regionalist view of the past."

The eclectic books later stories touch on migrant worker conditions and racism within the region, normally thought of as a bastion of racial tolerance and liberal culture.

Mr. DeCoteau insists he is not simply maligning New England culture, stating: I love New England. Im not trying to indict it, but to raise cultural awareness while telling touching, sometimes controversial, tales based on our regions past. In the end, I hope "Sing Of The High Country" is what its meant to be: a collection of stories that encourages readers to take a look at the heart of America and, in the words of one of my characters, sing of sin, sing of its splendor, sing of its grievances, sing of its glory. Just sing."

So, does the author treat New Englanders and their past fairly? Readers are invited to judge for themselves by visiting online retailers. Sing Of The High Country, ISBN # 1-4137-2448-5, is available for purchase at several sites, including http://www.publishamerica.com/books/5764 at the special discounted price of $16.95. It will also be available as of September, 2004 at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, respectively.

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