Beauty, grief lie under man-made lakes
For the AJC
Fiction
Fall Line
Joe Samuel Starnes
NewSouth Books; $24.95; 256 pages
Lake Sinclair. Lake Burton. Lake Lanier. Although it might seem like it, they haven’t always been here. They’re all man-made lakes created when dams aimed at providing electricity for the state were built throughout Georgia.
If you look up their history, you won’t find much mention of the people who moved away from the land that ended up underwater. A few sentences, at best, about whose home or farm, schoolroom or church or neighborhood lies hundreds of feet below the surface.
Nor will anything be said about questionable deals that secured the thousands of acres beneath those lakes. Certainly nothing about dirty politics, a land grab, or a back-room card game to divvy up the surrounding lake-front lots.
For that kind of story, you’ll have to pick up a copy of Joe Samuel Starnes' quiet dazzler of a new novel, “Fall Line.” Inspired by research the author did on Georgia’s man-made lakes, it’s set in fictional Achena County and takes place during a single day in 1955.








