MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 04016cam a2200373 a 4500
001 5475615
005 20221110043614.0
008 050513t20052005scu s000 1 eng
010 $a 2005014137
019 $a60402004
020 $a1570036020 (cloth : alk. paper)
035 $a(OCoLC)ocm60605122
035 $a(NNC)5475615
035 $a5475615
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dBAKER$dC#P$dOrLoB-B
043 $an-us-sc
050 00 $aPS3552.A4518$bG46 2005
082 00 $a813/.54$222
100 1 $aBaldwin, William P.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n85184604
245 12 $aA gentleman in Charleston and the manner of his death /$cWilliam Baldwin.
260 $aColumbia, S.C. :$bUniversity of South Carolina Press,$c[2005], ©2005.
300 $av, 203 pages ;$c24 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
520 1 $a"Once deemed "the most powerful man in the south," Charleston newspaper editor Frank Dawson met his violent death on March 12, 1889, at the hands of his neighbor, a disreputable doctor who was attempting to seduce the Dawson family governess. More shocking than Dawson's demise was the quick acquittal of his killer on the grounds of self-defense. Drawn from events surrounding this infamous episode, the third novel from the Lillian Smith Award-winning William Baldwin pulls back the veil of a genteel society in a fabled southern city and exposes a dark visage of anger and secret pain that no amount of imposed manners could restrain - and only love might eventually heal." "With a southern storyteller's passion for intricate emotional and physical details, Baldwin, through the fictional guise of Capt. David Lawton, chronicles editor Dawson's fated end. Having survived three years of bloody Civil War combat and the decade of violent Reconstruction that followed, the liberal-minded Lawton is now a famed but embattled newspaperman whose national importance is on the wane. Still, he remains a celebrated member of Charleston's refined elite, while in private life moving amid a pantheon of proud and beautiful women - Rebecca, his brilliant wife; Abbie, his sensual sister-in-law; Mary, the all-knowing prostitute; and Helene, the discontented Swiss governess - each contributing to an unfolding drama of history-haunted turmoil. Though Lawton loathes the South's cult of personal violence, by the customs of his era and place, he is duty-bound to protect his household, and though he loves his wife, he, like the doctor he despises, is attracted to the other women around him and entangled in his own sexual intrigues. Unable to act otherwise, Lawton meets his rival in a brutal physical contest, and in the aftermath, Rebecca, Abbie, Mary, and Helene must make peace with their own turbulent pasts." "War, earthquake, political guile, adultery, illegitimacy, lust, and murder - all the devices of gothic romance - play a role in this tale closely based on the lives of Charlestonians who lived these events over a century ago. A Gentleman in Charleston and the Manner of His Death interrogates the social codes that govern behavior and relations among the men and women of different races and many classes and confronts us with the folly of the human condition. Will witnessing the killing of David Lawton instruct us as to how to escape our own fated ends? Slipped quietly beneath the storylines of Baldwin's quick-paced novel is perhaps an answer."--BOOK JACKET.
600 10 $aDawson, Francis Warrington,$d1840-1889$vFiction.
600 10 $aDawson, Sarah Morgan,$d1842-1909$vFiction.
650 0 $aJournalists$xCrimes against$vFiction.
651 0 $aCharleston (S.C.)$vFiction.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008100183
600 10 $aMcDow, Thomas B.$vFiction.
650 0 $aMurder victims$vFiction.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008107405
650 0 $aMurderers$vFiction.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008107220
655 7 $aBiographical fiction.$2gsafd
852 00 $boff,glx$hPS3552.A4518$iG46 2005