The Indigo Scarf chronicles the crossing lives of escaped slaves Jedediah James and George Sharpe as they flee with their white wives into the wilderness of Pennsylvania's Sinnemahone country, on the upper reaches of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, during the frontier decades after Pennsylvania's last Indian purchase. The novel opens, however, in 1882 in Washington's Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station. Narrator Anna Maria Sharpe is departing for the backwoods of north-central Pennsylvania, which she fled in her teens doubtful of her identity. She encounters Benjamin James, now a drifting, alcoholic longshoreman, who'd been implicated in the murder of his brother during Anna Maria's childhood. Benjamin decides to join her on the journey. Along the way, we follow the tale of the founders of their sordid hideaway settlement: his father, the infamous ex-slave Jedediah James; George Sharpe, a former indentured grist-miller whom Anna Maria believes was her grandfather; and the white women they had escaped with to the wild Sinnemahone country, Sarah James and Rosanna Sharpe. Through the story, Anna Maria learns that the man Benjamin had been accused of murdering had been her father, and the murderer, her half-brother. Benjamin's account of the life of Jedediah James reveals a fatal obsession with ownership driving this freed slave toward his reckoning. Hostilities build to a head between James and his wife's father-the august revolutionary war veteran Samson Starret-as well as Sarah's ex-suitor, Williamsport's Thomas Tillman, a man fixated on this woman whom an ex-slave stole from him on the eve of their arranged marriage. The scenes of The Indigo Scarf take the reader from a plantation in Virginia's tidewater region to the tragic end of a whiskey and timber-pirating operation on the Susquehanna's un-peopled and feral West Branch during the frontier decades after Pennsylvania's last Indian purchase.

Nine out of ten dentists agree, Mazey Eddings's rom-com A Brush with Love makes your smile brighter!* *not scientifically proven Harper is anxiously awaiting placement into a top oral surgery residency program when she crashes (literally) into Dan. Harper would rather endure a Novocaine-free root canal than face any distractions, even one this adorable. A first-year dental student with a family legacy to contend with, Dan doesn’t have the same passion for pulling teeth that Harper does. Though he finds himself falling for her, he is willing to play by Harper’s rules. So with the greatest of intentions and the poorest of follow-throughs, the two set out to be “just friends.” But as they get to know each other better, Harper fears that trading fillings for feelings may make her lose control and can't risk her carefully ordered life coming undone, no matter how drool-worthy Dan is. Blood, gore, and extra-long roots? No problem. The idea of falling in love? Torture.

This beautifully illustrated catalogue accompanies the first major museum retrospective of the painter Norman Lewis (1909Ð1979). Lewis was the sole African American artist of his generation who became committed to issues of abstraction at the start of his career and continued to explore them over its entire trajectory. His art derived inspiration from music (jazz and classical) and nature (seasonal change, plant forms, the sea). Also central to his work were the dramatic confrontations of the civil rights movement, in which he was an active participant among the New York art scene. Bridging the Harlem Renaissance, Abstract Expressionism, and beyond, Lewis is a crucial figure in American abstraction whose reinsertion into the discourse further opens the field for recognition of the contributions of artists of color. Bringing much-needed attention to LewisÕs output and significance in the history of American art, Procession is a milestone in Lewis scholarship and a vital resource for future study of the artist and abstraction in his period. Published in association with Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Exhibition dates: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia: November 13, 2015ÐApril 3, 2016 Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth: June 4ÐAugust 21, 2016 Chicago Cultural Center: September 17, 2016ÐJanuary 8, 2017 Ê

Includes reviews of "Pennsylvania books," 1902-1903,1905-1915,1917-