Still Waters - An Edisto Story

It was in the 1940s when young Alice Rayle made a wrong turn and ended up lost on the back roads of Colleton County. She eventually saw a stranger and stopped to ask for directions back to Walterboro. That stranger who knew the way home was Travis Malcolm Beeson. The intersection of those two lives put them on the same path, headed in the same direction, for the rest of their lives.

They married and raised three children; Lynne, Gayle, and Travis Jr. Alice was a Colleton County Extension Agent and eventually a teacher. Travis Malcolm, known by his friends and family as Tom, was a World War II and Korean War veteran and a forester with the South Carolina Forestry Commission. Together they worked hard on their tobacco farm. Every August when the tobacco harvest was complete, the family would head to Edisto Beach to rest and revel in the undulation of the seasons and the tides.

Alice’s wrong turn and the wave of lives that flowed from it are the inspiration for Still Waters, a contemporary southern novel written by her granddaughter, Lindsey P. Brackett. Still Waters released September 8, 2017 by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas.

Still Waters is Lindsey’s debut novel. She first started to cultivate the storyline over ten years ago. She began to jot down ideas and make mental notes. Even as marriage, children, work, and life required more of her time and attention, she still held to the hope that the book would one day become a published reality. Her motivation came from unexpected places like reading Twilight books with seventh students. She also had a beloved family member who frequently asked her, “Have you written that book yet?”  That family member died before the book was finished and became an impetus for Lindsey to see it through to completion.

Alice Rayle Beeson died unexpectedly when Lindsey was just ten years old. Lindsey explains, “Much of the story of Still Waters was motivated by the ‘what if she’d lived’ scenario. What would she have been like for me to experience as an adult?”

That what-if idea became the fictional grandmother character, Nan, in Still Waters. The story centers on Nan’s granddaughter, Cora Anne, a recent college graduate wrestling with having her own life plans waylaid and facing the seemingly undesirable, albeit temporary, path her family persuades her to follow. Cora Anne resists because of a tragic memory and years of subsequent guilt. Tennessee Watson, Cora Anne’s childhood friend, and Nan both want to help Cora Anne move beyond it, letting go of the guilt and preserving the love that has always been there.

The most significant character in Still Waters is not a person, but a place— Edisto Beach.

Lindsey, who has cherished childhood memories of summer days on Edisto Beach with her grandmother, says, “Edisto for me is such a place of restoration. I always feel kind of revived in my soul after I’ve been there because I truly make a conscious decision to set everything else aside. What keeps Edisto this way is the people who love it.”

From the very first thought of writing a novel, Lindsey knew it would be set at Edisto. That sense of restoration from Edisto is what helped develop the characters and the story. Lindsey said, “I knew I wanted Edisto to be what heals Cora Anne, not because she fell in love.”

Lindsey is an award-winning writer and is currently a general editor with Firefly Southern Fiction, an imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. She has published articles and short stories in several print and online publications including Thriving Family, Country Extra, HomeLife, Northeast Georgia Living, Splickety Magazine, Spark Magazine, and Southern Writers Magazine. She also writes a column for several North Georgia newspapers, where she and her family live. She blogs at lindseybrackett.com.  Still Waters has been endorsed by Hope C. Clark, author of The Edisto Island Mysteries.

Lindsey will be in Walterboro Thursday, October 19, 6 – 8 PM, at the Colleton County Memorial Library. She will be available to sign books and talk about her Colleton County family history. The event is free and open to the public.  She will have copies of Still Waters available for a $15 purchase.

Lindsey is also scheduled for book signing at the Edisto Island Bookstore Saturday, October 21, 3 – 5 PM. This is also a free event and open to the public.

A portion of the proceeds from Still Waters book sales in the month of October will be donated to relief for recent hurricane victims.

This was originally posted on The Press and Standard website Oct. 14, 2017