"That Far Paradise" by Gene Markey

This is the second of Gene Markey's novels I have read lately and written about on this blog. The first was "Kentucky Pride" which I reviewed at this link. This novel, "That Far Paradise" is actually a prequel to "Kentucky Pride" with its protagonist being the grandfather of "Kentucky Pride"s protagonist, Aidan Kensal. The grandfather is named General Jared Kensal, a former revolutionary general who fought for American independence and is the first Kensal to settle in Kentucky on the land which becomes the setting for "Kentucky Pride". Jared Kensal is the holder of Revolutionary War land grants for several thousand acres of land near Lexington, Kentucky, and as the novel begins is preparing to relocate his family from his Virginia plantation,along with more than fifty slaves, to a fabulous home he has built on his Kentucky land. He has deeded the Virginia plantation to his brother Carter Kensal who is a heavy drinker and man of little consequence. Jared Kensal is married and has five children with his wife Ardath who is from Old Virginia upper class stock, hates the idea of moving to Kentucky and is very far removed from any positive feelings she might have had about her husband in the early days of their marriage. The husband and wife have effectively divided their children between themselves in terms of loyalty and affection. Jared has close connections to his younger son Harry, middle daughter Lexie, and the youngest daughter who is only a young child and a minor character in the novel. Ardath has close ties to the oldest daughter and son, Elizabeth and Garland who is attempting to become a doctor. Ardath attempts persistently to control all five children and prevent them from being closely attached to their father. Like most generals in most armies, Jared Kensal is a man of his own mind and forces the family relocation to take place. As the move becomes imminent, Carter Kensal meets a British spy and his wife, Polly Blayden, who has nearly killed her husband and abandoned him in possession of a letter he has from his British commander which proves that he is a spy. I nlight of their lack of intimate relationships with their spouses, Jared Kensal and Polly Blayden are immediately attractedto each other. Polly asks to join Jared's wagon train so she can travel to Kentucky to visit her sister in Paris which was a tiny Central Kentucky village in 1794, the period in which the novel is set. Jared has put together a massive wagon train for his trip to Kentucky, comprised of his family, an old Kentucky woodsman friend, Ab Caiton, about 65 slaves of all ages, a small detachment of militia whose purpose is to provide security for the group. He has a plan for taking the train across a route which is rarely used through what is now West Virginia, down the Little Kanawha River to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to Maysville, where they will go overland to Lexington through the area where in real life Daniel Boone and a party of his were engaged in the Battle of Blue Licks. Although Boone is a minor character in the novel, Blue Licks is never mentioned. The trip is an incredibly arduous effort requiring the hiring of mule skinners and ox drovers to drag the many wagons across mountains, the buying of several flat boats to haul the party, livestock, and plunder down the Ohio. It is a trip which most observers in the novel see as a doomed venture. But Jared Kensal and his team manage the feat as he and Polly fall in love, engage in a torrid affair along the way, and ends with battles with warring Indians along the Ohio, a final battle with Blayden himself, the death of Ardath Kensal. Gene Markey was a devoted student of Kentucky history during his life as the husband of Lucille Wright Markey, the owner of famed Calumet Farm in Lexington. The book is well researched with a cast of purely fictional characters, and is well worth reading. It leaves a gap of several years between "Kentucky Pride" and "That Far Paradise". It is my belief that Gene Markey had intended to write a third novel to cover the gap between General Kensal's trip to Lexington and the Civil War and Reconstruction novel, "Kentucky Pride", which tells the story of his grandson who was a Confederate officer who returns to find his plantation in Lexington has been seized by the government due to his support of the Confederacy. I fully realize that many readers will dislike the novel because of the fact that General Kensal is a slaveholder and his Kentucky woodsman friend Ab Caiton hates Native Americans and scalps a few in the course of the novel. But it is my position that fiction which is labled as "historical fiction" has a serious responsibilty to accurately represent the times which it purports to describe. Any attempts to either ignore, rewrite, or misrepresent the history being portrayed is not historical fiction. It is simply fiction, inaccurate fiction, and not worthy of an intelligent reader's time.

Colonial Governor Berkeley And The Modern Fight To Destroy Public Education

I am in the process of reading a book by Bob Deans entitled "The River Where America Began: A Journey Along The James" which covers the history of the James River in Virginia from about 1600 to 2006.  The book is well written although I had never heard Bob Deans' name mentioned before as an author although he has published at least three books.  Not only is the writing quite good but so is the research which is as good as just about anything I have read in quite some time.  The list of resources is actually about ten pages long which is rare today even in works which are labeled as historical nonfiction.  I will write in more length about the book when I have completely finished it but I found a little section which I cannot resist writing about immediately because of its logical application to American politics.  

On page 142, in a section carrying the subtitle "To Virginia Or Be Hanged" there is a discussion of the life and work of Virginia Colonial Governor William Berkeley who was governor of the colony twice from 1641 to 1652 and from 1660 to 1677.  The author quotes and comments on some of Berkeley's writing which can be applied to American politics today with just as much pertinence as it carried when it was written in the late 17th century. 

"...Berkeley was no democrat, at least not the way future Virginia leaders would define the term.  "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing" in Virginia, Berkelely reported to a royal commission in 1670, explaining that educated people were hard to control and  a free press exposed government to critics.  "God keep us from both."  (Deans p. 142)

Governor Berkeley wrote those words to the king or his subordinates in 1670 and, yet today, those words are just as pertinent to what is happening in America and American politics as anything which can be discussed.   I take note here of Bob Deans' use of the uncapitalized form of the word "democrat" and recognize that his choice to do so is appropriate since, during Berkeley's time, there was no Democratic party in America and the appropriate meaning of the word was simply a believer in or practitioner of democracy. But in today's America large numbers of the Republican party are openly and unrepentingly propounding the same views Berkeley did in his 1760 communication to the royal commission.  Many members of the Republican party attempt to cater to the uneducated segment of the populace and openly work on a daily basis to defund, deconstruct, and destroy the American educational system.  

The Kentucky Supreme Court just a few days ago was forced to overturn a law passed by the Kentucky state legislature, controlled by Republicans, which would have made it legally acceptable for public education funds to be diverted to charter schools and church controlled private schools of all stripes.  That action, if the Supreme Court of Kentucky had allowed it to take effect would have literally allowed all forms of fringe groups and individuals to steal public education funds from public education students and would have made it possible for "schools" teaching all forms of Right Wing Radical and religiously based misinformation while being funded with money paid by all tax payers regardless of their support or lack of support for such fringe beliefs.  We also see daily attempts all across the nation by Right Wing Radical groups, especially Right Wing Radical Repugnican groups to ban books, to restrict the teaching of long proven history, and to violate the Separation of Church and State, a criminal misinterpretation of the US Constitution which was recently perpetrated by the Right Wing Radical majority on the US Supreme Court. Just this week, a meeting of the Clark County Kentucky Public Library Board was hijacked by Right Wing Radicals who were attempting to ban books at the library or to force many, if not all, books with even mild sexual content to be placed in restricted circulation status. To her eternal credit, the librarian, Julie Maruskin, spoke out against book banning but sadly the board did vote to restrict the particular book in question as described in this quote from WKYT-TV 27 in Lexington:

“I do care about restricting books in a public library. I cannot do it. There is no way. It will never be one book,” Maruskian said.  Ultimately the board voted four to one to restrict the book to the adult section for “sexually explicit material.” (WKYT-TV 27. December 21, 2022)

Even more sadly, I am willing to bet that it won't be long before the board, by a similar vote of 4 to 1, will unjustifiably fire Julie Maruskin.  

Just as Governor Berkeley wished he could wipe out public education and the free press in colonial Virginia, these modern day Right Wing Radicals are attempting to do the same.  They must not be allowed to do that and every loyal American is duty bound to fight their attempts to do so.  Their efforts in state and federal legislatures and courts must be actively opposed.  They must be defeated at the voting booth.  Their aberrant laws and executive actions in such attempts must be confronted in both the courts and the media.  They cannot be allowed to win this battle which Governor Berkeley began in 1760.  It is up to the average American to oppose such efforts on a daily basis.  

In a more recent blog post, published on December 27, 2022, I discussed another aspect of Bob Deans' book under the title "An Important View Of The US Constitution" which can be found at this link.