Title: A Land Remembered

Author: Patrick D. Smith

In 1858 Tobias Maclvey abandoned his Georgia farm, loaded his meager possessions and his wife and infant son in a wagon, and headed south into the Florida wilderness to search for a new life. What follows in A Land Remembered is a big, rougy-to7ugh, folksy Florida saga — three generations of the MacIvey family (1858-s1968) from a dirt poor cattle-droving cracker (cattle rancher who cracks a whip) to a Miami real estate tycoon.

But it is also an epic portrayal of the American pioneer will to survive against all odds. And finally it is the story of the land, how at first bare survival is scratched from it and then how it is exploited far beyond human need.

The sweeping story that emerges is a rich, rugged Florida history featuring a memorable cast to crusty, indomitable crackers battling wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation and hurricanes and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the swamp. But their most formidable adversary turns out to be greed, including finally their own.

Love and tenderness are here too: the hopes and passions of each new generation, friendships with the persecuted blacks and Indians, respect for the land and its wildlife.