Henry Wiencek was series editor of the Smithsonian Guide to Historic America, a twelve-volume descriptive guide to the country's historic sites. He is author of Old Houses, with essays on the histories of eighteen American houses and the families who built them, published in association with the National Trust for Historic Preservation; two books on Southern architecture--Mansions of Virginia Gentry and Plantations of the Deep South; and several books for Time-Life. He has contributed articles to American Heritage and Smithsonian Magazine. Born in Boston and educated at Yale, he lives in Virginia with his wife, the writer Donna Lucey, and their son.
"One would have to be hard-hearted indeed not to be moved by the big story this book tells . . . or by the little stories it tells of individual Hairstons whose lives reveal so much about what it is to be an American . . . It is scrupulous and honest in all respects, and a powerful testament to what this country, at its best, can be." --Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World "The Hairstons is an epic . . . Enthralling . . . creates a profound understanding of slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement. He uses documents, sometimes centuries old, to bring these Hairstons vividly to life." --Howard Kissel, New York Daily News "Not since Mary Chestnut's Civil War has nonfiction about the South been as compelling as fiction." --Time "This is a moving and timely story of that which separates and binds black and white America. The Hairstons helps us understand our common past and present." --Julian Bond "A look at the largest slaveholders in the South and black and white families they spawned. Once they ruled over a pre-Civil War kingdom that spanned 45 plantations spread out over four states and included 10,000 slaves. To keep it all intact, they did what European aristocracy did: they married their own. And as one might imagine, this created a huge and maddeningly complex genealogical configuration, hard to decipher, to say the least. Undaunted, Wiencek, who has written for Smithsonian and American Heritage magazines, has spent eight years unraveling the mystery of the Hairstons (pronounced Harston), said to be 'the largest family in America.' What Wiencek has turned up is nothing if not intriguing, including aspects which are worthy of further exploration . . . Amid these huge plantations, for example, are unacknowledged children of their masters who become enslaved butlers, servants, and housekeepers, or children who were forced to keep their mother's maiden name to disguise their heritage. . . [An] eerily fascinating account." --Kirkus Reviews "Wiencek's lovingly detailed history of the complicated relationships among the various strains of this huge, tragically divided Old South family has been called a metaphor for the nation, but a more accurate description would lie in the words of Robert Penn Warren, who said, 'The past is never past.'" --The Dallas Morning News
This profile of the Hairstons, a large family of planters and slaves spreading from Virginia and North Carolina to Mississippi, examines the intricate situations forged by interracial relationships and reveals the fate of the family in the crucible of war, emancipation, and the struggle for equality. Journalist Wiencek's conversational narrative, based both on archival research and a series of encounters with family members, highlights the contingent construction of historical accounts while revealing the complex and contradictory beliefs and emotions that characterized these tangled relationships, filled with guilt, anger, and ultimately forgiveness without absolution. The result is a voyage of discovery down the stream of history. Wiencek reminds us that no such story, especially one as compelling as this, can be rendered simply in terms of black and white. Recommended for most libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/98.]‘Brooks D. Simpson, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
"One would have to be hard-hearted indeed not to be moved by the big story this book tells . . . or by the little stories it tells of individual Hairstons whose lives reveal so much about what it is to be an American . . . It is scrupulous and honest in all respects, and a powerful testament to what this country, at its best, can be." --Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World "The Hairstons is an epic . . . Enthralling . . . creates a profound understanding of slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement. He uses documents, sometimes centuries old, to bring these Hairstons vividly to life." --Howard Kissel, New York Daily News "Not since Mary Chestnut's Civil War has nonfiction about the South been as compelling as fiction." --Time "This is a moving and timely story of that which separates and binds black and white America. The Hairstons helps us understand our common past and present." --Julian Bond "A look at the largest slaveholders in the South and black and white families they spawned. Once they ruled over a pre-Civil War kingdom that spanned 45 plantations spread out over four states and included 10,000 slaves. To keep it all intact, they did what European aristocracy did: they married their own. And as one might imagine, this created a huge and maddeningly complex genealogical configuration, hard to decipher, to say the least. Undaunted, Wiencek, who has written for Smithsonian and American Heritage magazines, has spent eight years unraveling the mystery of the Hairstons (pronounced Harston), said to be 'the largest family in America.' What Wiencek has turned up is nothing if not intriguing, including aspects which are worthy of further exploration . . . Amid these huge plantations, for example, are unacknowledged children of their masters who become enslaved butlers, servants, and housekeepers, or children who were forced to keep their mother's maiden name to disguise their heritage. . . [An] eerily fascinating account." --Kirkus Reviews "Wiencek's lovingly detailed history of the complicated relationships among the various strains of this huge, tragically divided Old South family has been called a metaphor for the nation, but a more accurate description would lie in the words of Robert Penn Warren, who said, 'The past is never past.'" --The Dallas Morning News
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