Book tells about the dark side of Savannah

"Swallow Savannah" tells a tale filled with nuclear testing, political corruption, psychological turmoil, civil rights, explosions, murder, football, intrigue, manipulation, exploitation and family secrets.

The new novel by Ken Burger, nationally acclaimed sports column writer for The Post and Courier in Charleston, takes a fictional look at the Old South during the transformational years of the Savannah River Plant and its impact on neighboring communities.

"They'd become accustomed to strangers with strange jobs since the bomb plant came to town. The veil of secrecy that surrounded the project brought an uneasy excitement to the once-boring countryside," writes Burger.

It is a story of "a rural Southern community caught between one man's all-consuming ambition and the dawning reality of civil rights. Based in fictional Bluff County, S.C., the story explores the building of the world's biggest bomb factory by the federal government on 300 square miles of rural farmland," states promotional material.

In a review Pat Conroy writes, "It's got politics, treachery, rotten politicians and a swift moving plot. I think Mr. Burger is the first S.C. novelist to explore the Savannah River country around Allendale and the bomb plant and he does it exceedingly well!"

The Book Stall in Aiken will host a book signing for Burger on Sat. Feb. 14 from 10 a.m. until noon. Published by the Evening Post Publishing Co. with Joggling Board Press, the book was released nationwide on Jan. 13. For more information, visit www.jogglingboardpress.com.

Following Burger's book signing, there will be a poetry reading from the anthology "After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events." Edgefield poet Laurel Blossom, Ed Madden from USC, Dennis Ward Stiles of Charleston and Tom Lombardo of Atlanta. The poetry reading will be from 1 p.m. until 3 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public. For more information call 644-0604.

About the author

* Writer of a nationally acclaimed sports column for "The Post and Courier" in Charleston, S.C. for 20 years

* Burger served as the newspaper's Washington, D.C. correspondent

* First novel

* covered business and politics

* Born and raised in Allendale, S.C.

* Graduated from the University of Georgia

Quotes -

"After an extensive site search, the federal government bought up 300 square miles of rural South Carolina so it would have plenty of buffer if anything went wrong. And there was plenty that could go wrong...There was talk they were building the world's biggest bomb factory."

"The strange things people do in small towns are easier to accept than to explain."

"Eccentricity was a forgivable sin in a place where everybody crawled out of the same muddy gene pool. In truth, there were only two kinds of people in Groton: white people and black people. No Jews. No Catholics. Only a few Episcopalians. It was a Southern crossroads caught in the undertow of time."