Power in the Blood: An Odyssey of Discovery in the American South

John Bentley Mays left the American South because, like many members of his generation, he believed a larger, more interesting life awaited him beyond his ancestral land . . .

Decades later the death of Mays's aunt Vandalia summoned him back to Louisiana. He began to explore the secrets of Vandalia's house and his own past, and experienced a reawakening of feelings about his heritage--and the stereotypes and contradictions that exist in today's South. Moving through the Virginia tidewater forests, colonial plantations, and rural towns in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana where Mays's antebellum relatives lived throughout 400 years of American history, Power in the Blood is a poignant memoir composed during the course of one man's quest for truth.