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"I began 'Shadow' as a love story between the wealthy, and much older, socialite Kathleen Reed and the younger man of the mountains Hawk Bryson; sort of a turn on the May-December love stories where the man is always older, the woman is younger,"said Mangham, who rises early, works out, then begins writing. "But as I began writing, I let the suspense, the intrigue element take over."
From the first line "The body on the bottom of the pond lay face down." until the explosive ending, the reader is swept into a vortex of passion and evil in this novel set in the Western North Carolina mountains in 1949.
At every major happening the reader is drawn back to that pond, and that body. When someone's in the kitchen brewing arsenic, you think that will lead to the body. When the out-of-control automobile plunges through the woods carrying two young people to their death, you just know the car will crash into the pond and the decomposing body will be discovered. When the lovers slip illicitly through the woods to make love in the open air of nature next to the pond, you are certain they will discover the body. And the reader won't quit turning the pages until the body is finally discovered.
Hawk himself is a love story because the reader can't help but love this naive, completely honest gorgeous creation of nature. Even the young Indian girl, Raven Tallchief, who keeps her distance from the white world, becomes awestruck by his golden beauty.
Kathleen, who arrives in the Western North Carolina mountains to bury the ashes of her deceased husband, Alec, employs Hawk for handiwork around her cabin. For a man used to opening a can of potted meat to go along with crackers for dinner, Hawk is first taken with Kathleen's home-cooked meals and sweet Victrola music as the sun goes down on a sweltering, summer evening. In each other's arms the two find comfort and respite from the outside world of loneliness. Kathleen knows not to bring Hawk into her world; Hawk can not bring Kathleen into his world, but together they create their own, almost mystical, world.
Also a diviner or water witch, young Hawk in his simplistic manner says, "I am here. I am. I do not have to think to make it so. It is so. I am, I am here. Tell me what you want me to do. I may not be able to do it. But I will try. And you can do the telling. And I will do the trying."
In Hawk, Mangham creates a man completely at one with nature.
"Hawk remembered when he was little he would watch the moon come up over a near mountain as he sat of the porch of their house half way up the opposite mountain. Then he would run 200 feet down the field, lie in the tall grass and watch the moon rise over the mountain again. Then down another 200 feet, and another moon rise,"the story says. "As the moon moved up through the trees on the crest of the mountain, he could even make out the movement through the branches of the far, high trees.
"The moon would break the ridge and then perceptibly, gradually climb the tree, branch by branch, touching a higher one, leaving a lower one. Then it would move to the next higher branch and leave another one at its bottom. Soon it would be balanced on the tip of the tree then airborne, no longer in contact with anything earthly. Then Hawk would hurry down the field to a spot where no moonlight touched the ground yet. Lying again in the tall grass, he could watch the moon rise once more. Sometimes, on a good night with no clouds, he could see six moonrises."
While "Shadow of the Hawk"figures around Hawk and Kathleen, other characters revolve heavily in the intertwining subplots. Characters like store owner "Toad"Hyatt, Cherokee Indian Robert Tallchief, Miss Jesse with her multiple personalities, the evil moonshiner Wallace Cope, Adam and Ruth, a black couple from Atlanta stranded in an all-white community, Mattie and Nelly, two eccentric older women who constantly bicker at each other, Jonathan and Judilon, Kathleen's children, both older than their mother's lover; and the strange man known only as "7."
A book signing and reception for Mangham and his new book will be held Monday, Feb. 5, at 7:30 p.m. at City Lights Bookstore.
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