Low Country Blues

Low Country Blues explores one patch within the larger quilt of the American South. There is no escape from the deep disparities between the two distinct populations that share the waterways and back roads of coastal Georgia and South Carolina. Eugene Gerlacher is a first-generation transplant to the Low Country who is thrust into the social turbulence of the 1960's and early 1970's. He knows he does not quite fit within the southern gestalt and cannot mask his unease. He first escapes to the University of Florida, but realizes he is an outsider there as well. He takes a lonely stand but learns that the forces he has confronted are the vast wealth and political power that shows its hand only rarely. In full rout Eugene returns home to odd jobs and living on the edge. He learns more about himself there than any college coursework could offer, and finally meets a kindred spirit who wants to chart a new and authentic course for higher ground. The winners and losers are externalities. The struggle itself is all that matters. The book is ultimately about the conflict between southern racism and the long arc of the moral universe that has set about toppling it, and about how that conflict affects the lives of everyone in its path, regardless their race.