Blood & Bone

Shuler (English, Denison U.) is a native of Orangeburg, South Carolina. In 1968, two years before the Kent State massacre, police officers shot and killed civil rights demonstrators at the local South Carolina State College. The officers were exonerated while the community was torn. Schuler grew up with the memory of the event and in this book explores the process of reconciliation and remembering that has gone on in the town since then. That process takes him further back than the incident, but the book still revolves around it, weaving a complex network of stories that pass through that fateful day in February 1968. It's full of history, but not an authoritative nor investigative account. Instead, Schuler offers a study on the effects in the community that lives with that history. In the back is a useful glossary of "who's who." Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)