The Vain Conversation A Novel

Inspired by true events, The Vain Conversation reflects on the 1946 lynching of two black couples in Georgia from the perspectives of three characters — Bertrand Johnson, one of the victims; Noland Jacks, a presumed perpetrator; and Lonnie Henson, a witness to the murders as a ten-year-old boy. Lonnie’s inexplicable feelings of culpability drive him in a search for meaning that takes him around the world and ultimately back to Georgia, where he must confront Jack’s and his own demons, with the hopes that it will free him from the grip of the past. Pub Mar 2018. 6 x 9 in. 256 pp. University of South Carolina Press ISBN 978-1-61117-882-1 C/$27.99