The New Harmony Series
When I was in high school, which seems like ages ago, I dreamed of being a writer. I was fascinated with Faulkner; he was a Southerner like myself. During that time, Jim Crow reined, and there were so many who denied a “colored” boy’s dreams. Besides, I didn’t think “I” was good enough and didn’t pursue majoring in English as one of my friends suggested. I became an academic, and academic disciplines tend to beat any and everything literary out of you. However, upon being promoted to full professor, I felt free to experiment. In that space, I wrote my first novel, New Harmony. It has sat on various computers for more than thirty years but is now about to make its debut.
The New Harmony Series covers many niches: literary fiction, African American fiction, women’s fiction, historical fiction, and mystery.
In the first book of the series, New Harmony: A Mother’s Story of Love and Loss, Margaret Butler tells the story of her son’s murder. As a deeply spiritual woman born in 1905, her story also reflects the laments of former slaves and their descendants because Thad’s murder, as well as the truth of who killed him, is wrapped up in the paternalism and racism of the South, reflected in the lives of Ophelia and Hollis Demmings, occupants of the Big House. Their two children, Candy and Floyd Demmings, as well as the objects of their affection, become collateral elements that contribute to Thad Butler’s murder and the eventual murder of Hollis Demmings. After recounting Thad’s funeral in the first chapter, Margaret’s story begins as a ten-year-old who fervently wishes to be schooled. The book’s first part follows the contours of Margaret’s life, from her childhood innocence to her son’s death. Part One builds the intricate web of decisions and behaviors that become the rationalizations for murder. Part Two recounts what unfolds from her son’s death, continuing until we learn the reasons for Thad’s murder and the person responsible.
New Harmony: A Mother’s Story of Love and Loss will be published in 2025. The remaining books, Suleimān’s Psalm: New Harmony and Beyond and Awakened: New Harmony Re-embodied, will be published in 2026 and 2027.