Deena Bouknight
In 1886, an estimated magnitude 7.0 earthquake - the strongest and most destructive ever recorded on the East coast - devastated Charleston, South Carolina.
Author Deena C. Bouknight has chosen that event as the backdrop for her historic literary novel, “Light Fracture,” and at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 12 she will visit Shakespeare and Company Bookseller in Highlands to talk about her latest work.
“I’ve been carrying this story around with me for twenty years, ever since I learned about the earthquake,” Bouknight said. “Many people - even people who live in Charleston today - are unaware of the destruction it caused. I wanted to tell that tale, in a classical style, through the eyes of someone who lived through it.”
A well-researched, sense-of-place mystery, “Light Fracture” is set among the Charleston lighthouse culture and builds to a climax with a natural disaster and the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of the lighthouse keeper’s wife in the aftermath of the quake. There is even a Macon County connection – Wyah Bald is a part of the narrative.
Light Fracture illumines struggles meant to stay shrouded in a time when patience was a virtue, a lighthouse saved lives, and an earthquake was the furthest notion in the minds of those living in South Carolina’s lowcountry.
Bouknight will be signing “Light Fracture” at Shakespeare and Company Booksellers from 2-4 p.m. on Saturday, June 12.
Bouknight is also the author of “Playing Guy” and “Broken Shells.”