Leander's Lies

Elias Leander Muller did not hunt with Teddy Roosevelt in the Dismal Swamp, as he claimed. He never represented North Carolina in the U.S. Congress. He never lived on a plantation.

Lies. All lies.

In the post-Civil War South, Elias grows up along the eastern edge of North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains. A gifted boy, he imagines himself becoming a prominent politician or eloquent preacher. But early marriage and fatherhood trap him in the life he'd hoped to avoid: that of a poor tenant far...