The Sweet Hell Inside - by Edward Ball (Paperback)

About the Book

From the Back Cover

From National Book Award winner Edward Ball comes The Sweet Hell Inside, the story of the fascinating Harleston family of South Carolina, the progeny of a Southern gentleman and his slave, who cast off their blemished roots and prospered despite racial barriers. Enhanced by recollections from the family's archivist, eighty-four-year-old Edwina Harleston Whitlock -- whose bloodline the author shares. The Sweet Hell Inside features a celebrated portrait artist whose subjects included industrialist Pierre du Pont; a black classical composer in the Lost Generation of 1920s Paris; and an orphanage founder who created the famous Jenkins Orphanage Band, a definitive force in the development of ragtime and jazz.

With evocative and engrossing storytelling, Edward Ball introduces a cast of historical characters rarely seen before: cultured, vain, imperfect, rich, and black -- a family of eccentrics who defied social convention and flourished.

Review Quotes

"A striking contribution, filling in some important gaps in America's often uneasy racial dialogue...Edward Ball has done a masterful job of telling it." - Washington Post Book World

"Ball is a graceful storyteller, deftly weaving individual experience into social and historical trends." - O Magazine

"A striking contribution, filling in some important gaps in America's often uneasy racial dialogue...Ball has done a masterful job." - Washington Post Book World

"Excellent (and highly readable)...an absorbing story" - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

One of the top ten nonfiction books of 2001 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A striking contribution, filling in some important gaps in America's often uneasy racial dialogue...Ball has done a masterful job. - Washington Post Book World

"Thoroughly engrossing...Ball's earlier book, Slaves in the Family, earned him a National Book Award. This one is even better." - Seattle Times