Indigo Bend

by Alice Walworth Graham

In 1871, with carpetbaggers overrunning the South, and with most of the men either broken in spirit or dead in battle, women like Louise rose up to give new strength to the vanquished land.

Her husband had been one of those who died, leaving her with little Tommy. Her brother had been badly crippled at Shiloh and her father was too old to take up the cudgels again. Louise was faced with the problem of how to hang on to the big house in Natchez and the lovely plantation at Indigo Bend. She was a strong woman and a good one, but at first she was appalled by the loneliness of the plantation, by the bleakness of the house, and by the prospect of the overwhelming task she had set for herself. But gradually she began to see beauty in the woods and fields and swamps of Indigo, and to make friends with the people who lived around her. She even befriended the two children of Josh Sanders, the Yankee who owned a neighboring plantation and who held the mortgage on Indigo.

So begins this turbulent story of love torn by divided allegiances - a story of rare courage, full of the sights and sounds and smells of plantation life, told with humor and understanding and written from a deep knowledge of the people and the times.

314 pages

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

American writer, daughter of John Periander and Marian Alice (Lela) Gordon Walworth. She had two sisters, Mary and Madeleine, and a brother, Gordon. Madeline and Gordon both died of yellow fever before Alice was born. Her grandfather, Douglas Walworth, served as a major in the Confederate army and later became editor of the Natchez newspaper, The Natchez Democrat. His second wife, Jeanette Hadermann, was a journalist and novelist.



Alice graduated from Natchez High School and St. Joseph’s Convent. From 1922-1925, Graham attended Mississippi State College for Women and wrote for the school paper, The Spectator. She later attended a writing class by Robert Penn Warren at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La. In 1936, she married Richard Norwood Graham, a civil engineer. They had one child, Richard Norwood, Jr, also known as Dick.



The Grahams lived in Natchez and New Orleans. From 1936-1939 and 1962 on, they resided at the Walworth family home near The Burn , a Greek revival mansion, on Union Street in Natchez, Miss. The Grahams lived in New Orleans from 1939-1962. Alice frequently visited her sister, Mary Walworth Whitaker, who lived in Baton Rouge, La. She gave several book reviews for the Baton Rouge Women’s Club there.



Her first published novel is Lost River (1938). Lost River, along with The Natchez Woman (1950), Romantic Lady (1952), Indigo Bend (1954) and Cibola (1962) are romance novels set on Natchez plantations. Cibola was originally conceived as a sequel to Hardemann’s novel, Dead Men’s Shoes (1872), but the published version has only a few correlations to Dead Men’s Shoes. Graham wrote three historical romance novels set in England: Vows of the Peacock (1955), Shield of Honor (1957), and The Summer Queen (1973).



Graham was a member of several literary societies including the Authors’ League of America and the English-Speaking Society, and the National League of American Pen Women. She was also a member of the Natchez Historical Society and the Natchez Garden Club.
Graham died in 1994.

Reviews

[Infame Descalzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una novela ligera, escrita a mediados del siglo XX pero ambientada a fines del siglo XIX en Louisiana, Estados Unidos, lugar donde todavía la clase alta en decadencia sufre las miserias de la derrota en la Guerra Civil norteamericana.
El personaje de Luisa es una viuda de la guerra con un niño pequeño y toda la novela gira en torno al destino de la plantación de algodón, Indigo Bend (que da nombre al libro, claro).
Por supuesto que al tratarse del personaje principal, es casi inevitable que uno vaya desarrollando cierta afinidad hacia éste, al ir conociendo sus pensamientos, sus desventuras, sus sentimientos más profundos. Igualmente, todo el tiempo traté de contextualizar la historia en la realidad histórica de la época y en lo que el personaje refleja como pensamiento propio de la época. No sé hasta dónde la autora pensará igual. Pero mi conclusión es que las añoranzas de Luisa por las buenas épocas de bonanza del sur norteamericano se basaban en el "orden natural" del sistema esclavista. La explotación de los "braceros" (digamos, los trabajadores del campo) si bien no es del tipo despótico, igualmente destila ese tufillo de "cuán bueno sería que volviera el antiguo sistema tradicional", es decir, el esclavista. Ellos se consideraban los dueños por derecho. El rol de las mujeres como dueñas-herederas de campos, con todos sus "derechos" es todavía más fuerte del lado femenino, porque dentro de todo los hombres se ocupaban de la administración de las plantaciones y todo lo demás.
Como novela en sí, el personaje no se esfuerza prácticamente nada en salirse de los prejuicios y modo de la época, incluso al punto de resignar la posibilidad de felicidad que se le presenta. Hay otros personajes femeninos que apuntan a la liberación femenina (hablando del voto femenino, por ejemplo), pero eso no incumbe a nuestra pobre Luisa, empeñada en ser la tía que todos quieren. Claro que Luisa tiene varios puntos oscuros, pero tengo que decirlo, ¿quién no los tiene? No le pidamos peras al olmo tampoco. La autora plantea una historia bastante realista desde mi punto de vista, y por eso me pareció que valió mucho la pena leerlo.

[Bill Gatlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pleasant enough melodrama set in Reconstruction-era Natchez, Mississippi. Sadly marred with Lost Cause claptrap throughout. I stumbled on this book in the library but was sold by the dedication: "For Roane Fleming Byrnes," a woman I know as a leading proponent for the establishment of the Natchez Trace Parkway. I guess this book is a sad artifact of its time and place.

[Bamboozlepig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Proof that even the old books sometimes sucked. This isn't very well written and seems to copy a lot from Gone With the Wind. Somewhere towards the last portion that I skimmed to, there was a description of a character that sounded almost like Margaret Mitchell's description of Melanie at the Twelve Oaks barbecue, right down to the "cherry streamers" wound into the character's hair.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

An old-fashioned book, set in the post-Civil War South. As families try to hang on to their land, contend with carpetbaggers and corrupt governments, Louise discovers how strong she really is, and she is the glue that holds the story together.

A pleasant read. Problems were not always solved, but the story does point out that people can live with others they don't like. The resiliency of kind, strong, well-mannered people can go a long way in making the world a better place.