Hannah Jackson - by Sherry Kafka Wagner (Paperback)

About the Book

In the early twentieth century, Terrell Jackson, a married man in the small town of Fremond, Texas, accidentally encounters Hannah, a young woman with no family. Raised by a kindly stranger, Hannah seeks solace and community in the local church. When she meets and falls in love with Terrell, they defy the town's mores and he divorces his wife, marries Hannah, and takes her to live on a ranch. When the church expels Hannah Jackson for her transgression, the couple descend into a harrowing struggle that slowly twists the marriage apart. The sins of the father and mother inexorably encroach on the lives of their children, and the results are tragic. Told from multiple points of view by the townspeople after Hannah's death, this small town epic explores the tensions and suffocating repressions that pervaded American life during the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century, and that particularly egulated the lives of women.

Book Synopsis

Hannah Jackson is a story about family and place. In the early twentieth century, a married man in a small Texas town accidentally encounters Hannah, a young woman with no family. He falls in love. In defiance of the town's mores, he leaves his wife, marries his love, and takes her to live on a ranch, away from the community's condemnation. Yet in spite of love and commitment, the couple cannot escape the town's judgment. One particular event that shocks their relationship will affect the rest of their lives. During the years that follow, a web is woven that enmeshes not only the lovers, but their three children as well. Growing up, the young ones find themselves tangled in their parents' predicament. When they become young adults striving to find an identity and a place in the world, their struggles are marked by the effects of family and place. Each character must decide to stay or to leave, and whatever choice they make, the cost will be high.

First published in 1966, Hannah Jackson chronicles the turbulence of the '60s and remains a highly relevant novel depicting the oppression of social conventions during times of change.

About the Author

SHERRY KAFKA WAGNER grew up in Arkansas. She studied with Paul Baker at Baylor University and attended the University of Iowa, where this novel was developed. She was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University, and she regularly consults nationally and internationally. She has also published a play and children's books.