Plantation

Princeton is the northernmost southern town, according to Paul Robeson. Others have complained about its plantation mentality. This town, filled with wisdom and beauty, had nasty secrets to hide about its past. Plantation, is a historical novel paralleling the lives of three women: Daisy Gummere, an aristocrat from South Carolina, Ida, an African American child growing up with her servant mother in the first plantation house built in Princeton in 1912, and Tina, an 18-year-old Italian immigrant who wants to become an opera singer. The book depicts their struggles to fit into a male dominated and insular society and reveals some of the historical secrets that haunt the town of Princeton until today. The story spans the years of 1912-2000 and includes features of the Titanic, War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast, the Lindbergh baby, Albert Einstein, Woodrow Wilson, Paul Robeson, and other historical events particular to Princeton and its university.