Simple annals

the long version

Like a patchwork quilt made from family memories, Simple Annals is an American saga that spans two centuries, from Revolutionary times to the present day. In the tradition of Robert Frost and Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, Robert Allen has documented in prose and poetry the folklore and history of his Tennessee clan. More absorbing than any dry recounting of the tragedies and triumphs of the Allen family could be, this unique album-in-words sings of war heroes, farmers, God, graveyards, and violent death; of "hoop snakes" and ghosts; hard times and occasional, fleeting moments of joy and celebration. It chronicles the American Revolution, the Civil War - Tennessee, where Allen's ancestors fought for the Union, saw some of the most savage border fighting - and Allen's own extraordinary personal leap from backwoods poverty to life as a university professor.