Folly Park: A Novel

by Heidi Hackford

Fans of Surviving Savannah  by Patti Callahan,  The Book of Lost Friends  by Lisa Wingate, and  Almost Sisters  by Joshilyn Jackson will enjoy  Folly Park .

Are we ever able to escape the past? Should we be allowed to?

Though deeply ashamed of her slaveholding heritage, Temple Preston’s sense of duty and bittersweet memories tie her to Folly Park, her family’s crumbling ancestral plantation in Virginia. Now a cash-strapped tourist attraction, Folly Park was once the home of Confederate General Thomas Temple Smith, a southern war hero who died under mysterious circumstances. Temple is pursuing a plan to secure the house museum’s future when her summer research assistant, a Black PhD student, uncovers a remarkable the general’s wife gave birth to a biracial baby while he was away fighting in the Civil War. This discovery turns Temple’s quiet, insulated life upside down, and—along with further revelations about the past that come to light in the ensuing weeks—fuels the growing tension in her hometown as a Black activist and Temple’s own race-baiting brother square off in a local campaign for mayor. Faced with threats and betrayal, Temple discovers who she really is—and how much she’s willing to lose to tell the truth.

312 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2022

About the author

Heidi Hackford was born near Buffalo, New York, where snowy childhood winters allowed her to feed her appetite for reading and writing. At Cornell University, she filled all her electives with history and creative writing classes. After a few years working and writing short stories for an arts magazine in Buffalo, she earned a PhD in American history from American University in Washington, DC. The compelling, quirky, and inspiring plot lines of history thread through her work as well as her outlook on life.

Heidi’s passion for sharing history with everyone led to a career in museums. After internships and assignments at the National Museum of American History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, she took a position editing the papers of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia. In her free time, she wrote and published on Amazon Kindle the historical Puritan murder mystery, On a Stony Place.

After working setting up the digital archives of historical documents at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Heidi moved to Silicon Valley and writes and blogs for the Computer History Museum. She recently completed an upmarket novel, Folly Park, which explores how personal identity can become dangerously entwined with what we think we know about the past (coming Fall 2022!).

Heidi is married to a fellow historian and enjoys the company of her three awesome stepchildren and a cat named Kirby.

Reviews

[Suzanne Moyers]

This was the perfect read for a history geek who loves a good story--and someone who, like so many history buffs, is also grappling with the troubling implications of our country's past. I've visited so many places like Folly Park, including recently historic sites (aka former plantations worked by enslaved people) in Savannah and Charleston. So the way various characters in this book, all of them connected in some way to this fictional historic site, struggle to either rationalize that history or determine to set the record straight, rang completely true. I loved the unique depictions of those characters, from the blustery but good-hearted Captain Williams, to perceptive, quietly subversive Vee, to wounded-but-proud Al and also Temple herself, a white woman whose evolving views of her family's over-glorified "legacy" felt all too real. I bookmarked quite a few scenes in this novel--like the pivotal 'squirmish' between the Civil War enactors and "flea market" participants. The book was complex, with many threads, yet all of them tie together in highly satisfying way in the end. Put this on your To Read list!

[Gretta]

A great story about how the past is personal. History’s twists and turns shape our identity, so when new information comes to light that changes our relationship to that history, it’s no surprise we have strong emotional reactions.

[Jean Roberts]

Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy of her book for review.

Temple Preston descends from four storied families with roots anchored deep in the red clay of the South, plantation-owning families whose luxurious lives were built on the backs of their enslaved workers. Temple feels the weight of her ancestry every day as she works to keep alive her ancestral home, Folly Park, now a tourist destination, and honor her heroic great grandfather, General Thomas Smith. But it’s not that simple.

In Temple, author Hackford creates a character who struggles with her guilt and pride in equal measure. When a new intern arrives, seemingly with an agenda that may mar the reputation of Caroline Smith, the General's wife, Temple’s eyes are opened to the deep character flaws in her family. The more she delves into the ugly secrets of the past, the more her perspective shifts from those who owed the land to those who were forced to work it. At the same time, Temple fights to free herself from her overbearing father. Threaded through the story is a sweet but subtle romance.

I really enjoyed reading this novel. It reads like a dual time line through the use of letters and diary entries. Hackford brings alive the prewar days of the American Civil War and the lives of key characters General Thomas and Caroline Smith, their cousin Jane, an abolitionist from Boston, and King, and enslaved man. With great skill, she peels back the obscuring layer of time, rubs at the protective veneer of ancestor worship, revealing their darkest deeds and the heartbreaking tragedies that formed their lives. The ending of both the modern day and the past narrative left me completely surprised.

More than just an entertaining story, through Temple’s struggle the book explores issues of family dynamics and race relations, and questions how to deal with the ugliness of the past, especially in the American South.



I rate this book 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Suzanne Parry]

Heidi Hackford’s novel, Folly Park, is about one woman’s struggle between her own values and her family’s history as southern slave-owners. Temple Preston’s plan to see her ancestral plantation atone for its slave-owning past is to convert it into a place with a socially useful mission. For Temple, coming to terms with history is complicated by her father and brother, the town itself, and even complete strangers, all of whom have their own opinions and perspectives on Folly Park and its future. She hires Vee, a young black college student, and together they work to unearth the former plantation’s secrets. In a treasure trove of letters from before and during the Civil War, the two women are able to discover the true and startling legacy of Folly Park. The past unfolds through these letters and Hackford does a wonderful job of bringing history to life this way. Her language and details immerse the reader in the period. This novel does not flinch from the terrible truths of a slave-holding past, nor does it offer easy solutions. It is a realistic and engaging portrayal of a young woman’s search for herself in her family’s past.

[Linda]

Temple struggles to make sense of the meaning of her family's slave owning history. She has a plan to add a residence for African - American girls on the former slave planation. She battles the shrinking finances of Folly Park's Foundation, the local community and even her own brother to implement her plan. Everything is upended as Temple works with Vee, a young college student doing a research internship and the information they uncover together. This historical puzzle hits notes of contemporary unresolved dilemmas: how do the descendants of a troubled history find a way forward? The world abounds with this issue---South Africa, Germany, Ireland to mention a few and of course, America. Readers will be intrigued with how Temple attempts to reconcile her family's history with her own values. A deeply researched and profound debut that cuts at the heart of divisive issues in America.

[Ellen Barker]

Temple Preston loves her family plantation house and wants to save it, but she also wants to atone for her ancestors’ slaveholding there. In this novel, author Heidi Hackford works through the moral conflicts of liberal white descendants of slaveowners who revere their heritage and also agonize over it. Then Temple hires Vee, a young Black intern whose very presence makes Temple see everything about the house, the town, and herself in a different light. The story includes troubling finds in historical documents, family discord, a town divided, and a bit of romance. “Anyone who thinks they are [objective] is fooling themselves. History carries into the present in all kinds of ways we can’t control,” Temple says. This book is a great read, a novel that both informs and entertains.

[Debra Green]

I had the pleasure of reading an advance reader copy of Folly Park. Temple Preston struggles to understand her family’s past and set things right in a tale that addresses the complicated historical and present-day racial issues of the South. The book is filled with a well-developed cast of characters and peppered with interesting historical information. Much more than a literary device, I found the ancestral letters revealed through Temple and Vee’s research particularly compelling... a tantalizing peek into the mores of a different time. Put this on your reading list!

[Adele Holmes]

I had the privilege of reading an advance readers copy.

Temple Preston’s beloved ancestral plantation harbors evil secrets. When faced with the sins of its past, will she set the story straight—at any cost?

Hackford’s Folly Park spins a haunting tale of struggle for integrity in the face of familial corruption, both present and ancestral.

Timely, engaging, and evocative.

[Heather Barksdale]

“Folly Park” introduces Temple Preston, a young woman living on the property of her ancestral home, Folly Park, which also happened to be a slave-owning plantation in the southern US. She is fighting to keep Folly Park from becoming a parking lot, but she’s also learning a lot more about her family’s history than she could have ever imagined.

I really enjoyed this story. The dilemma and conflict between Temple and her family is palpable on the pages. She’s a young woman trying to find herself and her purpose, while seeking love, dealing with the loss of her father, and the reality of her family. It’s a lot! On top of all of that, she’s trying to find the one place she feels at home standing and every where she turns it seems people stand against her. I found Temple to be a realistic, emotional, and likable protagonist. Find the full blog review at heatherlbarksdale.com

I received a copy of this tale in exchange of a fair and honest review.

[Esther Erman]

Temple Tayloe Smith puts her all into saving Folly Park, her ancestral home. She hopes to redeem the inequities of the past -- especially the slavery that kept the place going before the Civil War -- by opening a school to help disadvantaged girls. To say she's facing an uphill battle minimizes the challenges she faces. Unsupportive family, economic woes, hostility from some factions in her town. The arrival of Vee, a PhD candidate doing an internship, is the spark that ignites controversial change.

Folly Park unites history with current news headlines in a satisfying yet startling mix. Once people open the door to truth, there's no telling where the road might lead. Readers can't help rooting for Temple as she tries to balance the demands of her various communities with her principles. A page-turner that will inspire lots of discussion.

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[Donna]

Good book. Normally, I don’t read books based on the Civil War and its aftermath, including today’s calls for reparations, but this story about coming to terms with all that transpired at Folly Park piqued my interest. Mysteries solved, family reckonings, tragedies explained along with hope and change for the future are packed into this story. While I found myself disagreeing with some positions taken throughout the story, I was compelled to persevere to the end of the story. I never cease to be amazed at the violence perpetrated on others throughout history by humankind.

[MaryAnn]

Unexpected family ties surface when Temple Preston and her summer research assistant Vee plow through old letters and diaries from the Confederate general and his family who once owned Folly Park, Temple's ancestral home.

[Cindy Kasper]

It was not the best historical fiction I've read, but it was interesting. I like the various views of all the characters. There are lots of twists and turns. Not all things are as you think they are! Good read.

[Theresa LeBlanc]

moving historical novel

Interesting read. The historical characters feel very real. Has some surprising twists. I thought sure I had it figured out early on, but I was wrong.

[Tracie Wallace]

Very thought provoking novel! Loved it!

[Michele Anne Waite]

Folly Park by Heidi Hackford was an exceptional historical novel touching upon monumental issues our country has endured as well as to our cultural and ideological differences. Heidi created stories within stories exploring racial injustice, history of the Confederate south, and the ever volatile community relations we are often faced with. I found this book to be a page turner as Heidi expertly weaves mystery and intrigue into stories with upmost importance. Her characters drew me in as well, even the unruly ones. After reading this book I found myself pondering “how do we understand our country’s history without dissolving it; instead correcting it?” I thoroughly enjoyed reading Folly Park by Heidi Hackford and highly recommend it.

I received a copy of Folly Park for my fair and unbiased review.