Marcellus Hightower, the young boy in the novel, THIS IS ADAM, returns to his hometown as a grown man in DEVIL'S ELBOW. He seeks answers, turning for help to Adam Atwell, his surrogate father. Adam, a black man in the segregated South, shares with Marcellus the haunting memory of David Ransom's murder on the mighty Ocmulgee River. The memories interweave with a quarter century of Marcellus Hightower's quest for love and redemption, through his developing character, economic calamity and the turmoil of war. With Adam's sage guidance, he finds a way to "cleanse his heart" and face life anew. "DEVIL'S ELBOW is a powerful novel indeed. The old verities-a man's troubles with women, with himself, with love and guilt-are all treated as freshly as if Cheney had discovered them." Walker Percy (1969)

1910. The piney woods of south Georgia. Adam Atwell, a black man, struggles to save the widow Lucy Hightower and her family from financial ruin. As the family's overseer, his business partnership pits him agains bankers and speculators out to steal the Hightower land. Adam faces the specter of Jim Crow, even murder, in his quest to save Lucy's legacy to her children. In turn, she wrestles with her desire to return to her family and an old sweetheart in Charleston or remain in the Georgia hinterlands raising her three children alone. Brainard Cheney (1900-1989) published four novels in his lifetime, all set in the south Georgia land of his youth. He later attended VAncerbilt in Nashville and became part of the 1920s and 1930s literary scene, a friend of Robert Penn Warren, Caroline Gordon, Allen Tate and Flannery O'Connor. Many consider THIS IS ADAM as his most fully-realized work.

LIGHTWOOD the novel appeared originally in 1939. Set in the piney woods of south Georgia just after the Civil War, it tells the story of a struggle between local land owners and Northern investors. The investors sought to harvest the "wooden treasures" of virgin pine forests. Over time, they used the power of money and the courts to wrest the title to the lands. A labyrinthine legal battle stretched out for more than half a century, culminating in the murder of the Company's land agent, along with as many as 35 more deaths. Based on historical fact, Cheney's novel brings to life a lost time in our history. Reviewed nationally on publication, it highlighted Cheney's friendship and literary connection to many of the Fugitive and Agrarian movement figures. A companion volume, THE LIGHTWOOD CHRONICLES tells both the fictional and true stories of LIGHTWOOD.

After the Civil War, 1870. Deep in the south Georgia river swamp forests. Ratliff Sutton, a young white boy, runs away from a broken home and grows up the adopted son of former slaves. In the swamps of the Oconee and Altamaha Rivers, he transforms into Snake Sutton, mythic timber raftsman, struggling with mighty rivers, fighting both men and alligators, steering great log rafts to Darien by the sea. He confronts his greatest struggle-breaking into Darien's timber merchant society. Forsaking China Swann, a "fancy lady" and his champion, Snake marries society belle Robbie McGregor. Fighting his way into the merchant ranks through hurricanes and murder, he moves beyond tragedy and into an awakening that summons him back to his roots upriver.