This 19th century Romeo & Juliet story is set in a Shaker community in Kentucky in the mid-1800s during the antebellum Protestant Revival-up to and including the Civil War years--which is a very lively, exotically colorful and eccentric period of Shaker history known as the Era of Manifestation (referring to the manifestation of spirits). While this is not a "Shaker novel" (or genre "Christian fiction") or a standard "Romance novel," it is, rather, "Historical fiction" and uses the Kentucky Shaker community (based on the Shaker community of Pleasant Hill) as a backdrop to create the book's major conflict-which is that between the Shakers and their neighbors in the town of Herodsville. Asher, a young poet and the son of an evangelical Baptist preacher from Herodsville, falls in love with Kitt, a rare beauty and revered member of the celibate Shaker community of Pleasant Grove. When this covert love affair is discovered by Shaker elder Wilford Ranks, ("The Watcher"), it changes not only his life, but profoundly affects the lives and romance of the two young people he "watches" from his window in the wall of the Meeting House. The "window in the wall" is the ongoing metaphor for the events and conflicts which follow, which begin with The Watcher (Ranks) as a "Big Brother" figure through whose eyes we witness the spectacle(s) of Shaker life and its inevitable demise.
About the Author: Thomas Rain Crowe is an internationally recognized author whose work has been published in several languages. As an award-winning poet, translator, editor, and freelance writer, he is the author of thirty books of original works including Rare Birds: Conversations With Music Legends and the multi-award winning book of nonfiction Zoro's Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods, published in 2005 by the Univ. of Georgia Press. As an editor, he has been an instrumental force behind such magazines as Beatitude, Katuah Journal and the Asheville Poetry Review, as well as editing the modern classic of contemporary Celtic language poets Writing the Wind: A Celtic Resurgence. He has translated the work of such prominent writers as Hafiz, Guillevic and Yvan Goll. He is founder and publisher of New Native Press. His literary archives have been purchased and are collected by the Duke University Special Collections Library. He lives in the Tuckasegee community in rural western North Carolina.