From Dragon Award-Nominated author R.R. Virdi Paranormal investigator and soul without a body, Vincent Graves, has 13 hours to solve a series of murders in Manhattan.
Poland, 1906: on a cold spring night, in the small Jewish cemetery of Zokof, Friedl Alterman is wakened from death. On the ground above her crouches Itzik Leiber, a reclusive, unbelieving fourteen-year-old whose fatal mistake has spurred the town's angry residents to violence. The childless Friedl rises to guide him to safety -- only to find she cannot go back to her grave. Now Friedl is trapped in that thin world between life and death, her brash decision binding her forever to Itzik and his family: she is fated to be forever restless, and he, forever haunted by the ghosts of his past. Years later, after Itzik himself has gone to his grave, his son, Nathan, knows nothing of his bitter father's childhood. When he begrudgingly goes to Poland on business, Nathan decides on a whim to visit his ancestral town. There, in Zokof, he meets the mysterious Rafael, the town's last remaining Jew, who promises to pass on all the things Itzik had failed to teach his son - about Zokof, about his faith, and about himself.
Grave sites not only offer the contemporary viewer the physical markers of those remembered but also a wealth of information about the era in which the cemeteries were created. These markers hold keys to our historical past and allow an entry point of interrogation about who is represented, as well as how and why. Grave History is the first volume to use southern cemeteries to interrogate and analyze southern society and the construction of racial and gendered hierarchies from the antebellum period through the dismantling of Jim Crow. Through an analysis of cemeteries throughout the South—including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Virginia, from the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries—this volume demonstrates the importance of using the cemetery as an analytical tool for examining power relations, community formation, and historical memory. Grave History draws together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and social-justice activists to investigate the history of racial segregation in southern cemeteries and what it can tell us about how ideas regarding race, class, and gender were informed and reinforced in these sacred spaces. Each chapter is followed by a learning activity that offers readers an opportunity to do the work of a historian and apply the insights gleaned from this book to their own analysis of cemeteries. These activities, designed for both the teacher and the student, as well as the seasoned and the novice cemetery enthusiast, encourage readers to examine cemeteries for their physical organization, iconography, sociodemographic landscape, and identity politics.
"Quien es?" The answer to this incautious question - "Who is it?" - was a bullet to the heart. That bullet -- fired by Lincoln County Sheriff Patrick F. Garrett from a .40-44 caliber single action Colt pistol -- ended the life of Billy the Kid, real name William Henry McCarty. But death - ordinarily so final - only fueled the public's fascination with Billy the Kid. What events led to Billy's killing? Was it inevitable? Was a woman involved? If so, who was she? Why has Billy's gravestone become the most famous - and most visited - Western death marker? Is Billy really buried in his grave? Is the grave in the right location? Is it true that Pat Garrett's first wife is buried in the same cemetery? Is Billy's girlfriend buried there also? The Fort Sumner cemetery where Billy's grave is located was once plowed for cultivation. Why? What town, seeking a profitable tourist attraction, tried to move Billy's body, using a phony relative to justify the action? These questions -- and many others - are answered in this book. Over 60 photos, including many historical photos never previously published.
Felicity Howard, a young American studying in a remote monastery in England is devastated when she finds her beloved Fr. Dominic bludgeoned to death and Fr. Antony, her church history lecturer, soaked in his blood.A Very Private Grave is a contemporary novel with a thoroughly modern heroine who must learn some age-old truths in order to solve the mystery and save her own life as she and Fr. Antony flee a murderer and follow clues across a sacred landscape. The narrative deftly mixes intellectual puzzles, spiritual aspiration, romance and the solving of riddles ancient and modern. Ancient buried treasure, a brutal murder and lurking danger-an itinerary of terror across a holy terrain
In Hidden History, Lynn Rainville travels through the forgotten African American cemeteries of central Virginia to recover information crucial to the stories of the black families who lived and worked there for over two hundred years. The subjects of Rainville’s research are not statesmen or plantation elites; they are hidden residents, people who are typically underrepresented in historical research but whose stories are essential for a complete understanding of our national past. Rainville studied above-ground funerary remains in over 150 historic African American cemeteries to provide an overview of mortuary and funerary practices from the late eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Combining historical, anthropological, and archaeological perspectives, she analyzes documents—such as wills, obituaries, and letters—as well as gravestones and graveside offerings. Rainville’s findings shed light on family genealogies, the rise and fall of segregation, and attitudes toward religion and death. As many of these cemeteries are either endangered or already destroyed, the book includes a discussion on the challenges of preservation and how the reader may visit, and help preserve, these valuable cultural assets.
In Denying to the Grave, authors Sara and Jack Gorman explore the psychology of health science denial. Using several examples of such denial as test cases, they propose seven key principles that may lead individuals to reject "accepted" health-related wisdom.
A debut author unearths the long-buried secrets of a small New England town in the 1850s in this richly atmospheric Gothic tale of murder, guilt, redemption, and finding love where it's least expected.
Fleeing Nazi Germany in 1936, the Schwarts immigrate to a small town in upstate New York. Here the father—a former high school teacher—is demeaned by the only job he can get: gravedigger and cemetery caretaker. When local prejudice and the family's own emotional frailty give rise to an unthinkable tragedy, the gravedigger's daughter, Rebecca heads out into America. Embarking upon an extraordinary odyssey of erotic risk and ingenious self-invention, she seeks renewal, redemption, and peace—on the road to a bittersweet and distinctly “American” triumph.