David Jordan – Ronald Kirkbride

It is an old-fashioned chronicle, covering the thirty years from 1921 in the life of a Quaker family. The narrator, a boy at the beginning, tells how his father is led to leave his profession as a Pennsylvanian banker and buy a smallholding in rural South Carolina, which is still gripped by the legacy of slavery and plantation. He wants to model new ways of doing things, both scientifically (in livestock management and crop rotation) and socially (paying his workers fair wages, and providing them with vegetable gardens, medical care, and a school). His initiatives meet powerful and violent opposition from the local landowners. He is murdered by a vigilante group when he defends black workers trying to form a union.  But eventually the family farm becomes the heart of a growing working community, a co-operative venture which, after many setbacks, wins over or buys out its opponents to become the largest economic force in the district. Quaker and ecological values are brought into the worlds of production and commerce.

The book also gives a moving account of David’s own maturation – his struggles, sexuality and love. He and those around him are vividly pictured. One memorable moment captures his glimpse of his sister-in-law bathing naked, an encounter with beauty that involves no lasciviousness.