As Stribling himself has stated, his aim in the novels [of The Vaiden Trilogy] was historical: "Each generation quickly and completely forgets its forebears. I was filled with a profound sense of tragedy that my own family, my neighbors, the whole South surrounding me would be utterly lost in the onrushing flood of years…."

To achieve so large a tapestry Stribling resorts to a heavily plotted novel. There are at least three separate, ingeniously dovetailed, struggles in The Store [the second novel in the trilogy]. (p. 17)

Stribling has always been skillful in designing and interweaving patterns of struggle. His long interest in adventure and detective fiction is evident. Even in his serious novels that preceded The Store Stribling uses many of the features dear to nineteenth-century novelists: withholding of relevant information until a more dramatic moment, designing "teasers" to entice the reader to the next chapter, and straining...