After lengthy service in both the Army and Navy, Jerold D. Peeler returned to the area of his youth to retire and write a book. Unlike most military veterans he chose not to write about his career which took him over much of the world, but instead chose to retell the stories that as a child he had heard from his grandfather and other family members.

His novel is based on true facts of what rural life was like in the years before the War Between the States, the war years, and a brief period of military occupation under the heels of the conquering north. Only the names of the characters are changed to hide the real names of the people about whom he wrote. The author uses his imagination to fill in the gaps between the stories.

Although the book is titled Thicketty, it is not about that small area of Cherokee County, S.C., but includes all of the “Dark Corner” of the state. Throughout the book he refers to Spartanburg, Limestone Springs, the Cowpens Battleground, and other settlements in the foothills of North Carolina.

Unlike most writers whose first characters seem to be cardboard “cutouts,” his characters are viable living individuals. They are very human with all the characteristics of normal people. His characters know love and hate, sorrow and happiness and all the emotions of life. Furthermore, he lets his characters speak in their own language. They express themselves in the local dialogue and quotes from long ago that best express their feelings. When one of the characters refers to the expression of a man as looking like “a mule eating briars” he echoes a voice from long ago yet it is still heard today.

He faithfully records their everyday life so realistically that the reader occasionally can smell the sweet and stale tobacco of the men at work. The pain of backbreaking labor by both males and females can be felt.

Skillfully Peeler weaved the thread of history through the fabric of his book. In so doing he has recorded the history of a section of the state which will become more important to the readers of his book for years to come.

This book is a joy to read, a treasure to savor, and a view into a turbulent period of the state’s history. The last line of the book suggests that a sequel could follow.

The author sums up his story in a short blurb. He writes:

Thicketty is a compilation of true and half-true stories with just enough fiction thrown in to tie it all together. The story is set between 1854 and 1871, in what was then part of Spartanburg County, South Carolina. The two main characters are Walt Banneck and his son, Cal.

Walt is a man of burning passions who can be as thoughtful and kind as he can be heartless and cruel. A dirt-poor farmer and family-man, shunned by his pious neighbors before being called to serve in the confederate army, returns to become not only a relatively successful farmer and entrepreneur, but the area’s champion as well.

And Cal, a young boy who idolizes his all-toooften absent father and receives little love from his mother, is drawn into the bosom of the farm’s Negro family. From the night she was born, he has had a special place in his heart for his younger sister, Susan, And, from the day when Ben Trivette’s beautiful and vivacious young daughter comes for her first tutorial visit, Cal knew in his heart and soul that someday she would be his wife and the mother of his children.

It is a story of love and hate, of compassion and vindictiveness, of protection and treachery, of prudence and recklessness. But above all, it is a story of youthful determination and the undying hope that tomorrow will be better than today.

294 pages - paperback $24.000 plus postage May be ordered from: Jerold Peeler 299 Cherokee Ford Rd. Blacksburg, SC 29702.