|
According to the book description of
A River of Change, “In the early 1800s, as America experienced her newfound freedom, the Mississippi
River became a conduit for growth in the heart of the country. From the painful turmoil of Europe and the seed of a southern
plantation family, leaders emerged along the river and exerted their energy, bringing inevitable conflict, money, power and
religion. Charles Hamel came from the German Revolution, Matthew Walsh and the Archbishop Francis X. Sullivan came from the
Irish Potato Famine, and Margot LaTrobe Blair came from the labyrinth of New Orleans society. Margot was the center of a family
that was king of cotton, sugar, money and slavery. The three men would climb a ladder of power with conviction and belief
in business enterprise, and would confront a tortuous labor union with intensely religious overtones ... and all of them had
ties to the beautiful Margot. The story unfolds in New Orleans and St. Louis, two growing cities joined by the Mississippi
River, as characters embroil in the boom of commerce, caveat emptor, and the struggle for power and and social finesse. The
lives of these four personalities flowed like a river - leading to dominance, personal violence, pain and death. With the
final climax of the bloody Civil War, the national society was transformed along with Hamel, Walsh, the Archbishop, and Margot.
It was a river of change.”
|
