An inspiring and heart-rending historical novel that traces the intertwined lives of two men with common roots in the rugged timbering industry of north central Pennsylvania, but whose destinies and loves turn them against each other. Heartwood is more than a novel of struggle and passion. It is a loving and careful preservation of a precious part of Pennsylvania history that has all but vanished.

Heartwood

Literature & Fiction

Piccirillo, PJ

Contemporary

Middleton Books

Based on the true story of two slaves who fled their owners with white women into the wilderness of north-central Pennsylvania, The Indigo Scarf interprets the little known legacy of slavery persisting in the north during the nineteenth century. Meticulously researched, the author’s work is informed by scholars in early American slave laws and northern black codes, by experts in post-colonial folkways, and by descendants who live to this day in the fugitive settlement their forbears established. While The Indigo Scarf relates the covert workings of sympathetic Quakers, the ruthlessness of a slave catcher, and the irony of a Revolutionary War veteran forced to face his daughter’s love for the slave Jedediah James, it treats the deeper theme of the spirit-breaking impact slavery has had across generations since abolition.
Though shadowed in whiskey-making and timber-pirating, The Indigo Scarf is a paean to devotion, testing the lengths a woman will go to save her man from a burning vengeance as he confronts the privations of a wild frontier while his former owner schemes his return. On a broader scale, the story is a testament to the perseverance and vision of pioneer women who devoted themselves to planting in their offspring the seeds of hope for liberty which may only be realized by descendants they would never know.
Woven between scenes spanning a forbidden, historically based slave marriage on a plantation in Virginia’s tidewater region to a tragic liquor operation on the Susquehanna’s un-peopled and feral West Branch during the frontier decades after Pennsylvania’s last Indian purchase, the narrator’s own sub-tale culminates in her realization of how a pioneer-woman ancestor had destined her to break the generational chain of bondage.

The Indigo Scarf

United States

Brown Posey Press

The Northern Appalachia Review is an annual publication making a place for the under-recognized literature of its region. The editors identify northern Appalachia as the Appalachia counties of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, and the northern portion of West Virginia, a part of America where authors have yet to be distinguished with a literary identity, a place that nonetheless remains rich in stories of conflict among humans and their landscapes.\nThe Review publishes authors from, living in, or writing about northern Appalachia. It seeks work that best conveys the character of the people and places of the region and which represents it as both distinct from and part of greater Appalachia.\nThe exposure offered by the Review generates support for the authors of Northern Appalachia, ensuring that the voice of this remarkable part of the country is acknowledged, appreciated, and preserved.\nIn this volume: AB² Alex Bischoff Alexandra Mackenzie Wilson Alice I. Reynolds Angela Gaito-Lagnese Annie McWilliams Barbara Sabol Ben Moyer Caroline Wermuth Cathy Lentes Colin Williams Daniel Flatley Deni Naffziger Diane Glancy Don Feigert Edwina Pendarvis Erica Manto-Paulson Jaclyn J. Reed Jacob Strautman Jane Ann Fuller Jim Minick Jimmy Long John Repp Jolene McIlwain Jordan Tyler Temchack Karen Whittington Nelson Kimberly BMW Wade Kirk Judd Lilace Mellin Guignard Linda Schifino Lisa Harris Martha Gallagher Michael Maryalice Yakutchik Matthew Grolemund Michael Garrigan Nichola Moretti Paula Makris Pauletta Hansel Richard Hague Robert Beveridge Sam Bohen Sandee Gertz Sherrell Wigal Stephanie Kendrick Thomas E. Strunk Valerie Nieman

Northern Appalachia Review v2

Catamount Press

From the title story's beautiful reflection on a couple's grief, guilt, and awakenings in the aftermath of a stillbirth, to a graduate student discovering in the trauma of an assault the prerogative of her own fertility and identity, conflicted hearts long for human connection while whispers from vivid landscapes beg that these troubled characters turn their searches inward.

Nunc Stans: A Ferry Tale

Genre Fiction

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Books by Piccirillo, PJ

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Piccirillo, PJ. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Heartwood

The Indigo Scarf

Northern Appalachia Review v2

Nunc Stans: A Ferry Tale