Remember the Year

About the Book

James Merritt, a bank president in Madison, South Carolina, is faced with the apparent embezzlement of bearer bonds by a trusted employee.

His wife Elizabeth and their son Edward and daughters Dabney and Jane find their lives altered by the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

The Episcopal rector, Charles Gaillard, unhappily married, becomes involved with Barbara Walker, a New Yorker temporarily living in Madison.

Vidalia, the Merritt’s cook, is surprised by the return of her husband Eli, who fled after killing a man twenty years ago. Elmore Stokes, wrongly suspected of embezzlement, leaves Madison for a chance at happiness by marrying Allie Cummings and escaping from his domineering mother.

An eventful year leaves Madison changed, but life goes on.

About the Author

Both authors do “remember the year”, though not in South Carolina. Friends and neighbors for over thirty years, Mary Kinard and Frances Jackson are co-authors of a historical novel, A Silence After Trumpets: the story of Sarah Buchanan Preston, which grew out of their work as docents for Historic Columbia. Mary, a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and retired librarian, is from Fayette, Alabama. Frances, a graduate of Bryn Mawr and French teacher until her retirement, grew up in New York. They became South Carolinians by marriage, but feel they are now natives.