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In a 1987 article, Southern Magazine called Madison Jones's A Cry of Absence "the last pure tragedy written by a Southerner." Set in 1957 in a small Tennessee town just awakening to shifting racial and social attitudes, the novel concerns the inevitability of change and the consequences for those who resist it.
Hester Cameron Glenn, a proud, well-bred southern aristocrat, is the self-appointed guardian of her family's and her community's heritage. When a young black man is chained to a tree and stoned to death, Hester deplores the brutality of the act. Slowly she comes to suspect, and finally to know, who the real murderer is, and she decides what she must do to protect the family honor.
About the author
Madison P. Jones is an assistant professor of Professional & Public Writing and Natural Resources Science at the University of Rhode Island where he directs the Digital Writing Environments, Location, and Localization (DWELL) Lab and coordinates the Science Writing & Rhetoric graduate certificate program. His research intersects the rhetoric of science and technology and environmental communication. His digital projects combine spatial rhetorics with locative media for community-engaged science communication, social justice, and environmental advocacy. His articles have appeared in journals such as Kairos, Communication Design Quarterly, Rhetoric Review, and Rhetoric Society Quarterly and have garnered recognition from ARSTM and CCCC/NCTE's Best Article Awards. For more, visit: madisonpjones.com.
