Publisher's Synopsis
Of Smoke and Sand deals with the lives and events surrounding the fictional Badaraque Plantation in Baldwin County Alabama beginning in 1835 until falling victim to the Civil War. There is travel by three masted schooner from Philadelphia to New Orleans and by steamboat to St. Louis. A train ride then takes us to the Black Hills of Montana which concludes the book. It was in an earlier time of wealth and peace but also a later time of great violence. It should surprise no one that they appear both in the Indian's world as well as ours.
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It's 1873. Your memory is clear as a bell. You were there to watch your godchild race her horse a quarter mile on the Le Champs de Blanc Plantation track, while Judge Phillips bet a small fortune in gold on his daughter's horse. You were there to watch the bidding at the Mobile Docks when the Corissa unloaded her last run with a hull full of African slaves. Watching Genevieve marry the man of her dreams was a must as her long white trail flowed like a waterfall down the staircase behind her. You watched a wealthy planter behave as a spoiled child and you stepped in to confront him. There was a rape in the barn that was hidden for years. Occasionally cannon fire from Fort Morgan flashed brilliantly white and smoke drifted out over the bay as the shells screeched overhead toward a Yankee gunboat. Pirates, long thought extinct, make another return with disastrous results. Indians attempt to regain land lost and are set for a final showdown with the army. Sweeping landscapes, lost and found loves, a murder mystery on a train, and quite naturally, some time on a steamboat up the Big Muddy. Join me in this grand journey of sails, rails and cotton bales.
Mr. Farrar was born in Canoe Alabama in 1951 and moved to Atmore in 1958 where he graduated from Escambia County Highschool. His parents were F. H. Farrar and Carolyn Walker Farrar. He holds degrees from both Auburn University and UAB in Microbiology and Medical Technology. His wife of forty-five years reside in Luverne, Alabama with a multitude of cats and a dog.
