Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Standing at the Scratch Line | 1998 | Guy Johnson | Buy |
| 2 | Echoes of a Distant Summer | 2002 | Guy Johnson | Buy |
The Tremain Family Saga spans the twentieth-century Black American experience through two generations. Standing at the Scratch Line introduces King Tremain, whose life takes him from the rural South through World War I and into the Harlem Renaissance. Echoes of a Distant Summer picks up decades later, following the family as old conflicts resurface.
Guy Johnson drew on his own family’s history and his mother Maya Angelou’s storytelling tradition to create a saga that blends personal drama with the larger currents of American racial history. The two novels work as both standalone reads and as connected chapters in an ongoing family story.