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from the issue of August 23, 2007
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Missouri quakes inspire Agee
BY SARA PIPHER, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
A series of devastating earthquakes - the largest in the history of the contiguous United States - struck New Madrid, Mo., in 1811 and 1812.
| | The College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of English will host the Adele Hall Lecture and reading by Jonis Agee, 4 p.m., Sept. 5 in the Great Plains Art Museum. The reading is free and open to the public.
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Two separate quakes registered over eight on the Richter scale. Solid ground liquefied. For a time, the Mississippi River ran backwards.
Several years ago, during a visit to the long-since reestablished town of New Madrid, UNL English professor Jonis Agee saw story potential. Because the quakes were so unusual, the government at the time sent a cadre of historians and geologists to record its effects. Those records still exist in the town's museum. There, Agee discovered the story of a young girl whose family's cabin was destroyed the night the first quake struck. Fearing that the apocalypse had arrived, the family fled inland, leaving behind the girl, trapped under debris.
"There was no mention after that of what happened to her," Agee said. "So it just kind of drove me crazy for a while. It was one of those moments of hearing something that's almost unbearable, so eventually, I kind of felt like I was writing the novel to save her life. I spent nights and nights imagining what would have happened to her. Who could have saved her?"
Agee gave the girl a name - Annie Lark - and a fictional rescuer, French fur trapper Jacques Ducharme. Their story, and the stories of their descendents, unfurl against the backdrop of the 19th Century South in her new book, "The River Wife." The novel took seven years to research and write.
"The book is about women, about a place and time, about the curses of accumulating wealth... But mainly it's about the women in Jacques's life," she said. "There's a quote I like in (Shakespeare's) Love's Labours Lost, 'There is no evil angel but love.' I thought a lot about the things people do in the name of love."
Now that Agee's latest labor of love has been released, life for the author is "sweet and kind of surreal."
"I have never worked so hard in my life on a book, and you know, it really surprised me, in every aspect," she said.
Adding to the intensity of her writing process, Agee's horse fell last summer, and she broke her collarbone, right before the final draft of her book was due.
"I really didn't have more than two weeks after my surgery to do rewrites," she said. "I could only use one arm, so I managed by handwriting and dictating while (my husband) Brent would type. At the time, it was really difficult changing the process, but it was either that or don't publish the novel."
Agee's promotional tour for the book focused on river towns. This summer she traveled to St Louis, Milwaukee, Oxford, Miss., and Memphis, Tenn.
GO TO: ISSUE OF AUGUST 23
ARTS HEADLINES FOR AUGUST 23
Missouri quakes inspire Agee
American Life in Poetry
'Bougie' examines beauty magazines, popular culture
Exhibit celebrates Howard
'Great Plains Great Books' to feature Johnsgard title
Hopper's 'Room in New York, other works fuel new opera
NET Television to broadcast AVCA Volleyball Showcase
ON THE BEAT
Ross opens fall semester with 'Once,' 'You Kill Me'
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