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Book One: ‘The Aching Tooth’
‘THE ACHING TOOTH’ is the first book of a four volume set entitled ‘THE HARLIE’.
The setting is post Civil War Americana where we are introduced to eight
treasure hunters who, along with an aging deputy with a wild imagination, ride
off into the mountains in search of a lost gold mine. Among them are Elmo
Cotton, a local black sharecropper from Harley with a shadowy past and a
talkative mule, and a psychopathic army colonel with a personal agenda and a
taste for immortality. His name is Horace ‘Rusty’ Horn, but most just call him
Red-Beard. Together they share a deep, dark secret rooted in bloody and violent
past and face an uncertain future, as seen through the microcosmic eyes of the
treasure hunters and the myopic lens of a mad man, each in his own unique and
discriminating way.
Book Two: ‘The Motherstone’
‘THE MOTHERSTONE’ is the second book of a four volume set entitled ‘THE HARLIE’ which
chronicles what happens along the way to the lost gold mine, providing further
insight into the lives and minds of the characters, and dark relationship
between Red-Beard and the Harlie. When they reach their final destination, the
secret is revealed: Elmo Cotton is a ‘war-child, Red-Beard’s own illegitimate
son conceived when his mother was raped by Colonel Horn some years ago during
the war. It’s a secret the Harlie refuses to believe. In a final cataclysmic
event perpetrated by Red-Beard himself, they all die; except for Elmo Cotton
who, along with his loquacious mule, escapes the secret intake, and something
else… something that falls from blood-stained hands of Colonel Horn when he is
gunned down by an unseen assassin. It’s what Red-Beard had been searching for
all along; and it will drive Elmo Cotton ever closer to his destiny… and the
truth.
Book Three: ‘A Raccoon on the Run’
‘A RACCOON ON THE RUN’ is the third book of a four volume set entitled ‘THE
HARLIE’. Shortly after returning from the doomed expedition, Elmo Cotton is
suspected of not only murdering Colonel Horace (Red-Beard) Horn but responsible
for the deaths of the others as well, including the old deputy whom he loved. He
is thus forced to flee, becoming a ‘raccoon on the run’ and living in the wild
where he encounters a lost tribe of Native American Indians who live on the
Island of Long. There in the wooded sanctuary he is ceremoniously proclaimed a
demi-god – The Great Raccoon! and the answer to an ancient prophecy. He soon
learns that he is not alone, and has been followed ever since he’d left Harley
by a mysterious dark figure wearing animal skins, a beard, and bi-focals.
Book Four: ‘The Miracle-Maker’
‘THE MIRACLE-MAKER’ is the fourth book of a four volume set entitled ‘THE HARLIE’. Before leaving his wife and child flies on his front porch, of a man
Elmo hears, mostly from his Uncle Joe, an old black farmer with a talent for
catching called the Miracle-Maker. His name is Willie B. Wright, and he runs a
church down in Old Port Fierce called MIRACLE TEMPLE AND BARBECUE PIT OF AVENUE
‘D’ where he serves barbecued pork ribs after each and every service. He could
be the answer to all of the Harlie’s problems. But sill, Elmo refuses to believe
that he is a war-child, and convinces himself that this man they call the
Miracle-Maker is actually his real father, Ezekiel Harley, who ran way away just
like he did; and for that he must die. Along the way to the old port city to
find the Miracle-Maker, Elmo meets up with an old acquaintance, Sherman Dixon,
another local sharecropper who on his way to the same fated city to sell his
crop of Harley beans to a local merchant who is on a mission which will
eventually land him, the ‘Harlie’, and the Motherstone, on a mysterious Island
in the South Pacific where Elmo’s destiny ultimately lies. Together, the two
‘Harlies’ share several adventures that will bring them not only closer to that
destiny, but closer to the truth they eventually find at the end of the book
which culminates and climaxes in a totally new and unorthodox celebration of the
Eucharistic Mass from an African American point of view. What they find is God.
Author's Biography
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