Patrick Crotty/Assistant Intrigue Editor

Some say the South is known for its hospitality and steamy climate. 

But it’s important to keep in perspective where the cultural traditions of the South came from. It’s a history of storytellers, sharecroppers, tenant farmers and cotton mills. 

Many of us who grew up in the South are familiar with these things, but Charlotte Miller feared a legacy was being forgotten. 

“An era was disappearing without people noticing,” Miller said.

With the release of her first novel, “Behold, This Dreamer,” the Auburn graduate did a bit of searching to remind Southerners of “how we became who we are today.” 

“Behold, This Dreamer” is the first of a trilogy involving several families in the South, focusing on Alabama and Georgia, from 1924-1986. 

The novel occurs during the jazz age, or the “roaring ‘20s,” a time in the South marked by share croppers, tenant farmers and cotton mills. 

“That era of the South is gone,” Miller said. “The story was inspired originally by stories I heard about my grandfather, a Cherokee.” 

“Behold, This Dreamer” is the tale of Janson Sanders, part Cherokee, part poor-but-proud white, as he avenges his father’s death by reclaiming land lost to a wealthy planter during prohibition and prior to the Depression.

“All of the young people were supposed to be going to hell in a handbasket,” Miller said. “There’s amazing similarities with today; I don’t think we’ve changed that much.”

Melinda Haynes, author of the New York Times bestseller “Pearl,” writes in the book’s sleeve, “Charlotte Miller has illuminated a dark corner of the American South with remarkable grace and beauty. ‘Behold, This Dreamer’ is an incredible debut novel.”

Uncovering details from life during this era proved challenging. According to Miller, the majority of farmers were small farmers and share croppers. 

“It was the last days of King Cotton,” Miller said. “My grandfather was a share cropper, and the other was a cotton mill worker.”

Miller said she utilized magazines, newspapers and department of agriculture manuals from the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s while researching for the trilogy. 

She also interviewed extensively and checked in antique shops to get a glimpse of life during that era.

Miller recounted an interesting day of research for her book, when she found herself, “following around a man plowing with a mule, trying to get the right names for the parts of the harness.”

Miller is very close to the South and the history she uncovered in writing “Behold, This Dreamer.” Having never lived outside of the South, Miller grew up in Roanoke and attended Auburn, where she began writing the trilogy 22 years ago as a student.

Miller received a degree in business administration in 1981.

Today, she works as a certified public account in Opelika during the day, while writing vigorously into the night. 

Miller’s short story, “An Alabama Christmas,” was included in the bestselling 1999 regional collection, “Ordinary and Sacred as Blood: Alabama Women Speak.”

Miller explained her aspirations for writing must be balanced with paying the bills. 

Working as a CPA during the day handles Miller’s finances. “You end up doing something else to put a roof over your head,” she said. 

The author stays up late writing every night.

Randall Williams is editor-in-chief at New South Books, Miller’s publisher in Montgomery. 

“She’s one of the hardest working writers I’ve ever published,” Williams said. “It’s unusual for a first novel to get such response as this.”

Miller explained the legacy she sees disappearing within today’s society. 

She mentions Roanoke, where she interviewed “some of the older people still in the mill villages where the mill is completely gone.” 

Closer to home, she referred to Pepperell Mill Village, in Opelika.

“Small towns are losing nowadays; the community inside of a city is dying,” Miller said. “History is not being passed on.”

“In the South, we have more of a sense of the past, but we’re losing some of that,” Miller said. “Southerners are born storytellers; we have a sense of who we come from more,” she said. “There’s a connection to the place we come from, like a link between community and the area.”

Miller’s second novel in the trilogy, “Through a Glass, Darkly” (1927-1939), is set for publication in fall 2001. 

The third, “There Is a River” (1939-1986), will be published fall 2002. The main character is an Auburn student.