Shaman (The Cole Family Trilogy, #2)

by Noah Gordon

They hate the Irish and the Jews and the Chinese and the Italians, and God knows who all, for coming to America too late. They hate the French and the Mormons on general principles. And they hate the Indians for being in America too early. Who the hell do they like?” Rob grinned at him. “Why, Jay … they like themselves! They think they are just right, having had the sensibility to arrive at exactly the correct time,” he said.

Rob J.’s revelation was science, a faith less comfortable and far less comforting. Truth was its deity, proof was its state of grace, doubt was its liturgy. It held as many mysteries as other religions and was beset with shadowy trails that led to profound dangers, terrifying cliffs, and the deepest pits. No higher power shed a light to illuminate the dark and murky way, and he had only his own frail judgment with which to choose the paths to safety.

There was a good Constitution in America, and he had read it carefully. It gave liberty, but he recognized that it worked only for people in skins whose color ran from pink to tan. People with darker skins might as well have fur or feathers.

Native-born Protestants loathed and oppressed Catholics and immigrants, and Catholics and immigrants scorned and murdered Negroes, as if each group fed off its hate, needing the nourishment provided by the bone marrow of someone weaker.