Seeds Of Magnolia

In Miller’s debut historical novel set in the years before the Civil War, a Southern family learns to navigate the shifting boundaries of race, love and history.

Austin Miller is a well-to-do slaveholder with thousands of acres to his name and slaves in multiple states. Among them are Elizabeth and her daughter, Sophia, who stay with Austin as he changes residences to keep up with his various pursuits, including politics and a law practice. Household politics takes precedence over national politics, however; although Austin treats his slaves well, he’s marked by biases and paradoxes, as he wonders about slavery’s morality. (The moral questions become more pressing when it’s revealed that Sophia has become pregnant by her owner.) Austin decides, despite his personal convictions, to fight for the South in the Civil War. His wife and slaves remain home at Magnolia Manor, where they later encounter Union generals Ulysses S. Gant and William Tecumseh Sherman; the latter seeks to take over the manor for war housing. What makes this fictionalized account of a 19th-century American family unusual and noteworthy is that it represents the author’s attempt to come to grips with his heritage. In a fascinating personal note, author Miller explains that he’s the great-grandchild of the real-life Austin Miller and Sophia, making this novel a thorough imagining of his family’s past.

 - Kirkus Reviews

The most peaceful years of Austin Miller’s life were before he married. Only he, Sophia and her mother, Elizabeth, were in the house. After his marriage, the house became a hotbed of chaos fueled by overzealous attitudes and unyielding temperaments. His marriage had been strained by adultery, and after it had been patched, they were separated by the war. Sophia’s best friends were three white girls that she grew up with. When seen by someone that did not know them, they would assume that all four were white. The color of their skin would not be enough to tell that one had a trace of black blood in her veins that made her a slave. Appearing to be white did not make a person white, and being black had its’ limitations. Yet, in a small southern town in Tennessee, Sophia ignored the social code regarding interracial relationships. Seeds of Magnolia unveils some of the stories that have been sheltered by the family—stories that have been kept in the closet, swept under the rug, or just gone untold.