Beginning with Cannonballs

A Novel

Jill McCroskey Coupe

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781631528491
• Subtopic: Historical Fiction
• Index: Literature

“ . . . both timely and timeless in today's fraught social climate.” —Necessary Fiction

“This lyric novel is a gorgeous mosaic.” —John Dufresne

The award-winning author of True Stories at the Smoky View is back with another novel about an unusual friendship. In the 1940s, in segregated Knoxville, Tennessee, Gail (white) and Hanna (black) shared a crib in Gail’s parents’ house, where Hanna’s mother, Sophie, was the live-in maid. When the girls were four, Sophie taught them to swim, and soon they were gleefully doing cannonballs off the diving board, playing a game they'd invented based on their favorite Billie Holiday song.

By the time they’re both in college, however, the two friends have lost touch with each other. A reunion in Washington, DC, sought by Gail but resented by Hanna, sets the tone for their relationship from then on. Marriage, children, and a tragic death further strain the increasingly fragile bond. How much longer can the friendship last?

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Nobody’s Business (1951)
• The Cocktail Party (1956)
• Charlotte’s Birthday (1958)
• Parallel Lives (1964)
• The Medicine Tree (1968)
• Sophie Makes a List (1970)
• Auld Lang Syne (1979)
• Not Solomon (1983)
• Two Envelopes (1984)
• Investigation Report (1985)
• Lettergate (1985)
• First Stop: 6221 Osage (1985)
• The L-shaped Sofa (1986)
• Flames Floating on a Lake (1986)
• Seeing Ghosts (1993)
• Jefferson Davis Highway (1996)
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author