Our latest novel in progress, tentatively titled, Ghosts of Saint Pierre, is a fictional biography based upon the real life of a man who left Saint-Pierre, Martinique a few short years before Montaigne Pelée buried the city in fire and ash, taking the lives of 30,000 souls, including all of his loved ones.
It is the story of Duane’s grandfather, Joseph Paul Poncy, who as a young man in Saint Pierre was related to some of the richest and most powerful families of Martinique, families who built their fortunes off of the back of slavery and exploitation. Joseph Paul was a man who, in the face of tremendous personal loss, was never able to speak of his birthplace or the mixed race family he left behind. The novel, part historical biography, part ghost story, part love story, is told from the perspective of a forty year old father about to bury another son, a victim of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19. The death has brought to the surface all of the ghosts he thought he had buried forever.
You can discover more about Martinique and this novel by visiting: Ghosts of Saint Pierre.
