Abundance of Talent, Diane McPhail

Written By: Jenny King | Issue: 2018/05 - May | Photograph By: Marjorie Christiansen Photography

Diane McPhail has an abundance of talent.  She’s an artist, poet, writer, therapist, teacher, retreat leader, and now, a soon-to-be published author.  In May 2019 McPhail’s historical novel, “The Abolitionist’s Daughter,” will be released by Kensington Publishing.

This has been a labor of love for the past 12 years.  The book, while fiction, is based on a true event and one that involves McPhail’s family in many ways.  In Webster County, Mississippi, the story of “the feud” was woven into the history of the area.  Diane heard it repeatedly growing up, but it wasn’t until many years later that she discovered how her family was involved.

“Behind this story is little known history that has haunted me since childhood,” she says. “This novel began in my attempt to understand the source of such violence and the will to survive in its aftermath.  As an experienced therapist, I am fascinated by nuances of character and motivation beneath the surface of history.  My fictional account of the grim killings and the mystery behind them is an exploration of complex relationships between men and women of different classes, races, hopes, and history.”

Set in the era of the Civil War, “The Abolitionist’s Daughter” is a tale of how Emily, her mother in law, Adeline, and a slave, Ginny, survived this catastrophic time after the murder of the men of the family.  It’s also a story of greed, upheaval, and slavery. 

But let’s let Diane herself tell us more about her novel. 

“In the heat of a Mississippi spring, the Civil War looming on the horizon, Emily Matthews thrusts an auction posting into the hands of her father, a slave-owning Abolitionist Judge.  Her defiance of injustice leads not only to unintended tragedy in the lives of a slave family, but to her own marriage to Dr. Charles Slate − a tragic union that will end in her father’s death and the lynching of her husband for his murder.  However, all is not as it appears. 

 “In the aftermath, a heavily pregnant Emily buries both husband and father.  At her side, her stoic mother-in-law, Adeline Slate, buries her only sons, one whose mangled body she has cut from the hanging tree herself, holding private misgivings as to the role of her erratic daughter,Belinda in the tragedy.

The educated slave Ginny, Emily’s life-long companion, finds herself torn by divided loyalties, her strength the voice of conscience.  In the face of despair these women negotiate the devastations of war, suspicion, and treachery.  Each struggles to find individual purpose and meaning in a world divided by race, wealth, and bloody conflict.  Emily matures into womanhood, finding inner resources for survival.  By the end of the war, she discovers not only her strength, but a long-hidden and unlikely love, and a deadly lie at the heart of the family violence: a secret that reveals untold betrayal, ultimate sacrifice, and provides for transformation and redemption.”

Let’s all hope Diane will find time in her world-wide book tour to schedule one here at home.  It’s certainly going to be well worth waiting for.