Prime Leaf
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Up in smokeJack Wall, a successful Atlanta investment counselor, harbored a private dream of one day becoming a writer. When he retired at age 55, Wall decided to pursue his goal, taking creative writing classes at Georgia State University and later participating in the Sewanee Writers' Conference. But his dreams were cut short when he became ill and died suddenly in 1996. Now, five years after his death, Wall's first and only novel has been published by Hill Street Press in Athens, Georgia. A bold, sweeping look at conflict and change in his home state of Kentucky, Prime Leaf leaves the reader wondering what might have been if Wall had lived to continue his writing career. Moving from just after the Civil War to the early 20th century, the novel traces the effects of the violent tobacco wars on one Kentucky family. From a gripping opening scene in which a young boy witnesses his father's murder, Prime Leaf draws the reader in with deft characterization and an appealing portrait of an agrarian era. The lead character, Boyd Converse (who like Wall himself, attends the University of the South), struggles with an agonizing choice between loyalty to his family and to the tobacco planters group he has joined. Wall shows a sure hand as he moves the narrative through the decades of Boyd's life toward its harrowing conclusion.
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