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volume one – Smoot
Delmus Smoot
Born July 17, 1898, Flowerdew Hundred, Prince George County, Virginia
Died September 22, 1916, The Somme, France
I heard it coming. I felt its shadow cover me. And when it hit, the world was like a blanket shaken of its dust and I was the dust
Red pixels in the bluest sky a pink mist floating off condensing on the hot knot of men writhing in the mud below blushing the bosoms of all those pillowy Dutch girls their mothers in their perfumed parlors the fruit seller in Rotterdam who looked up and had to blink the priest in Bruges who took a deep breath and coughed the oceans tinctured the road to Smoot Plot slickened the red clay dampened the hair of Euell’s dog oiled my mother’s lips wetted
She licked them perceived a salt then went on about her day
Smoot, the first volume of the series a lesser god of the stray he-dogs, is a multigenerational saga that traces the lineage of Jubal Aloysius Smoot, the patriarch of the Smoot family. It follows his descendants through nearly two centuries, from early 19th-century Virginia to mid-20th-century Africa and Europe. The novel is written in a fragmented, oral-history style, incorporating first-person narratives, poetry, and historical records to tell the stories of individuals marked by hardship, violence, and displacement.
At its core, the book explores themes of survival, legacy, and the cyclical nature of suffering. It portrays the Smoot family's struggles with poverty, oppression, and personal demons, often using a raw, poetic, and deeply introspective style. The narrative includes voices from various generations, each adding layers to the Smoot family's dark and turbulent history.
Smoot is an unflinching examination of heritage, suffering, and the cyclical nature of human existence. It blends folklore, history, and deeply personal narratives into a brutal, poetic meditation on what it means to belong to a family bound by fate.