Summary

In opening “Divide the Waters from the Waters,” Cep ruminates on the history of the Tallapoosa River. She talks about how, “no longer legally able to subjugate other people,” white Southerners turned toward attempting to control nature, and, as a result, the Tallapoosa River (8). People sold their land as the Alabama Power Company moved to the area to build a dam. Lake Martin was eventually formed by the Martin Dam constructed. As the lake filled with water it replaced the area that had once held “cabins…schoolhouses, general stores and graves” (10).

Cep turns to the background of one of the main players of the novel, Reverend Willie Maxwell. While he was a child, the state of Alabama suffered from the influence of the Communist Party, the Great Depression and the boll weevil. He was...