The Puzzle Jug is a story that waited beside the Savannah for more than 150 years until the conditions were just right for it to be spoken. And now that time has arrived.

   Real people lived by the river on, what was known in those days as, the old Lamar Swamp Plantation. Some of them were born and died right there, looking across the water at Augusta, Georgia. But others were just about as far away from their home across the ocean as they could imagine.

   The story of The Puzzle Jug begins on July 4, 1856, as 8-year-old, Hannibal undergoes a rite of passage guided by Granny Venus, the 90-year-old matriarch of the Swamp Plantation. Literate and disciplined, with an ethos forged by African and Creek traditions, Venus witnessed the promise of liberty as a girl during the American Revolution, when those closest to her became Black Loyalists. Their unwavering vision to fight to make their own choices marked her for life 

  It is that most basic of human freedoms she instills in her Swamp Village people through rituals and celebrations.

   As South Carolina hurtles toward Civil War, driven by those determined to preserve the institution of slavery at any cost, the entire community - enslaved and enslavers alike - faces a karmic reckoning when a group of captured African children is delivered to the plantation woodyard. 

   Each must decide whether to shield the children at their doorstep, or stand aside as violence engulfs them. 

   Through quiet, yet deliberate resistance carried out within the narrow boundaries imposed upon them by their country's culture, the story explores what happens when people venture to the edge of their own soul.

   The Puzzle Jug is presented as a serialized historical novel told in a dramatized audio form.

   If you are new, begin with Chapter One or listen to the latest chapter by clicking one of the buttons above.

   New chapters are added each week.