“It was not until 1946 when my grandmother received a copy of the revised birth certificate in the mail from my father and blurted out to me, ‘That ain’t your name,’ that I really became aware of the problems. She quickly added, ‘Your mother, she never got it right neither.'”

The family saga as a literary form is common in much southern literature. Families are viewed as arenas where deep conflicts and mixed emotions play out, often across generations; where people’s identities and values are linked to a tragic past; where ties to the land are strong and a sense of providential order and destiny prevails; and where black and white, the poor and the privileged are inextricably bound.