Book Description

"I was amazed how well Liz Newall drew me into the world of Icie Jones. In lesser hands, the potentially complex telling of Icie's story could have been maudlin, but, delightfully, it's compelling, intriguing and sparkling with Southern delight. You Don't Have to Tell Everything You Know is, quite simply, wonderful." -Mark A. Stevens, author, The Clinchfield No. 1: Tennessee's Legendary Steam Engine Isamar Woods Jones McGee, was born in upstate South Carolina into a second family in 1865, one month after the Civil War ended. Her life is a product of unsettled times, family dynamics, and the human condition. She tells her story and those of the people around her through journal entries, which she annotates and amends in her final days. Her travels take her down the Savannah River and to the 1901 Charleston Exposition where she meets Beautiful Jim Key, billed as the world's smartest horse, and a young Nancy Columbia, the Inuit star of stage and screen in the early 1900s. Isamar's life and times offer a fascinating, often funny, sometimes complex testament to the joys and sorrows of the human heart -- regardless of era. You Don't Have to Tell Everything You Know attempts to find meaning in the randomness of life -- a butterfly wing, a war, a Bible verse, a chance meeting -- the stuff of one's own story. "Liz Newall has created an endearing, relatable character in Isamar 'Icie' Jones. And it is this character's story -- as told to us in richly detailed fashion throughout -- that captured my desire to learn all I could about Icie and her world. Let me encourage you to pour yourself a cognac (you'll understand why), curl up, and spend the next few hours taking in every line that Newall beautifully dedicated to the Southern dialogue." -Clem Stambaugh, poet, In Black and Light