"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.

"Pink Flamingoed" Book 1 Aylesford Place Series by Steve Demaree

Steve Demaree is a writer in Lexington, Kentucky, who has self-published a pile of books, generally on Amazon as far as I know althought I believe he does sell his books on other websites. I believe he has somewhere between 30 and 40 self-published books on his personal page on Amazon. He tends to write books in series with common charcters and common locationis. This particular book, "Pink Flamingoed", is book 2 in a series called "The Aylesford Place Series". I found an autographed copy of book number 2 in that series on a used bookshelf which belongs to the University of Kentucky Hospital Auxillary at the hospital. I bought that book, autographed, for 75 cents. When I got it home and my wife found that it was book 2 in a series, she insisted that I buy book 1, this book, before we read book 2. My copy of book 2 had an address and phone number listed for Steve Demaree so I called the number hoping that I could buy an autographed copy from him since I like to collect autographed books. He answered the phone himself and we had a nice ten minute or so talk about his writing and our common memories of the area in Lexington where we had both lived and, in particular, of Aylesford Place, a little one block residential street near the UK campus. The book series is a use of the street name and the actual book has little to do with actual Aylesford Place as I have known it for the last 50 years or so. But any author is required to invent or appropriate a lot of names especially if they write a lot of books as Steve Demaree does. This book is not quite 350 pages and has a group of characters who, for the most part, live on the fictional Aylesford Place. Their relationships among themselves are much like a large extended family. They all attend the little church on the street, visit each other's homes, and know an awful lot about each other's lives, likes, dislikes, and unsettling habits. They can all be said to be protagonists of a sort to one degree or another. The book does not contain a genuine villian or antihero. Steve Demaree can write in a style to satisfy the heart of most high school English teachers. The book moves on from one very minor crisis to another in the lives of one or more of the primary characters. It lacks real conflict of any consequence and, therefore, lacks any significant conflict resolution. It is readable and every fifty or so pages Steve Demaree will construct a sentence of some consequence or a humorous line which can make you actually giggle. But the book would be far better if it contained a decent and decidedly effective villian. There are no train wrecks, violent deaths, nasty divorces, or crimes of stature to keep one awake at night. The characters live happy, fulfilled lives and no ever seems to break a leg or a more. But I was pleased to see that Steve Demaree did insert a female,wheelchair bound character into the book who is generally realistic and worthy of respect. As a man who has been married to woman who has been in a wheelchair for more than 25 years, that was important to me. That female character, Allison, is the friend of the primary female character, Amy, who is in love with the primary male character, Brad Forester, who is a successful author of mystery novels who has decided to move to Aylesford Place after inheriting his grandparents home on the street. They meet in the first few pages, are still together and apparently in love at the end of book, but conveniently for other characters who enjoy being a part of their lives they are not married at the end. But there is hope for that marriage in book 2. There is also hope in book 2 for the marriage of Allison and her new school teacher boyfriend Chuck. But nothing really dramatic, tense, or dangerous happens in the book. It was a relief to make it to the end.

Visiting Jerry's Restaurant Paris, Kentucky!

 Yesterday, Monday, December 12, 2022, my wife Candice and I traveled from our home to Paris, Kentucky, to visit and eat in the Jerry's Restaurant there which is the last operational Jerry's Restaurant in the United States.  The same family has owned the restaurant since the original franchise and opening dates in 1961 and just last year they celebrated sixty years in operation.  The Jerry's franchise was invented and originated in Lexington, Kentucky,by Jerry Lederer who opened the first Jerry's in 1946 and began franchising the restaurants in 1957.  The Paris restaurant opened just four years after the franchising program began.  The company once had restaurants in nearly every medium sized city in both Kentucky and Indiana with other widely spread across the Midwest.  They functioned as middle class and working class dine in and carry out restaurants with a standardized menu of hamburgers, sandwiches, steaks, and desserts.  Their three best known items were the J-Boy, a large hamburger; the Champ Sandwich, a hot ham and cheese sandwich on a long bun; and the Hot Fudge Sundae which was composed of vanilla ice cream between two thin slices of chocolate sheet cake topped with warm chocolate sauce and a maraschino cherry.  These items were supported by a wider variety of hamburgers, sandwiches, and spaghetti based items.  The franchise lasted until about 20 or 25 years ago when it began to wither and die with one restaurant after another either closing permanently or changing names, menus, and operational identities.  My wife Candice had never been inside a Jerry's Restaurant despite having lived in Kentucky since 1992 before most of the chain had closed.  I suppose that is my fault.  

 

A few days ago, we had a conversation in which Jerry's came up and decided to travel to Paris so Candice could actually visit one of the restaurants.  I have quite a few positive memories of the restaurants in Prestonsburg, Lexington, and one or two other Kentucky towns.  We left home in time to reach Paris at about the end of the traditional lunch hour at 1pm and drove down the old Paris Pike from Winchester, Kentucky, which is a wonderful drive on a two lane road which begins near I-64 and wends through the persistently spreading high dollar suburbs of Winchester which have been steadily eating up some of the best cattle farms in Central Kentucky.  As you reach the edge of the bedroom community a few miles from Winchester you will see a few of what used to be wonderful old to ancient farm houses, now abandoned and waiting for those farms to also be developed.  Thankfully, the development has not spread all across Clarke County and a few miles from Winchester, the real cattle farms are still operational and you realize you have returned to the traditional agricultural landscape which has been the real bread and butter of Central Kentucky since about the early 19th century.  As you reach the Bourbon County line the view improves immensely because Bourbon County where the economy has been more supported by the Thoroughbred horse industry and government and the populace have taken far more interest in preserving the traditional agriculture based economy.  Shortly after crossing the county line, real Thoroughbred farms begin to appear and are the main use of land literally to the city limits of Paris.  

 

The Jerry's is located on US 68 at the southern edge of town where it has always been.   The historical sign still stands 61 years after being erected in the edge of the parking lot.  The sign on the front of the restaurant is still the historical sign and the two corners of the building constructed from hand laid stone still give the appearance which Jerry's Restaurants always showed.  We were amazed on a Monday, early afternoon, the parking lot was relatively full and the dining room was packed to the point we had to wait for fifteen minutes before being seated.  But inside the building the great majority of the original decor is gone and has been replaced by more modern signage furniture, and general appearance.  The wait staff are highly efficient, friendly, helpful, and give the wonderful impression of a small town restaurant where most of the customers are regulars and both the staff and customers know each other.  The menu has the aforementioned three items from the traditional Jerry's menu but is mainly the typical dine in restaurant menu you might encounter in a working class to middle class establishment anywhere in the Midwest or Southeast.  There is fried chicken, chicken livers, cat fish, pot roast, hamburgers, a few steaks, hamburger steak, salads, and desserts.  I had open faced pot roast which was acceptable but not exceptional, well done, appropriately served, and adequately portioned.  Candice had the hamburger steak which is the typical quarter pound of ground round, done to her specifications, served with her choice of several sides, and much like you would find it anywhere in America.  For dessert and for old times sake, we shared the Hot Fudge Sundae and it was just as I remembered it from sixty years ago, warm on top, cold in the middle, a great combination of ice cream, chocolate cake, and chocolate syrup topped with a maraschino cherry.  I honestly wish I had chosen the Champ Sandwich in order to compare it to my memories and I might well return there in the future to do that.  The trip was worth the time and money but just a bit short on fond memories.  The servers are professionals and worthy of respect for having survived the last three years in what had become a dangerous job.  The owners are to be commended for having found a way to survive when all their peers in the Jerry's business are now long moved on to either retirement of other enterprises.  If you have fond memories of a Jerry's anywhere in America, it would be worth your time to visit this last one in America.  

 

The photograph below is of the long defunct Jerry's Restaurant in Hazard, Kentucky, and is from the WSGS Radios Facebook Page.  This photo shows the typical standardized architecture of all Jerry's as they were franchised and built. 

 The photograph below is of the front of the Jerry's Restaurant in Paris, Kentucky, which stills shows that standardized architecture of all Jerry's construction.  This photograph is by the blog author, Roger D. Hicks. 

 The photograph below is of the traditional Jerry's Restaurant sign which is still proudly displayed by the Jerry's in Paris, Kentucky, and states the fact that the same family has owned the restaurant since its franchise date in 1961.  This photograph is by the blog author, Roger D. Hicks.