Author talks about book based on Signal Mountain

When Joy Jordan-Lake lived on Signal Mountain, the Ku Klux Klan was alive and well.

Klan members burned crosses, vandalized cars and made sure residents knew that racial and ethnic diversity wasn't welcome, the author said.

And the year wasn't 1960, it was 1980.

Dr. Jordan-Lake, author of "Blue Hole Back Home," loosely based the coming-of-age novel on her hometown and came back to visit Thursday for a question-and-answer session at Signal Mountain Middle-High School.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm having to interpret the South to the people I talk to," she said. "I've never been able to speak to a group of people who know the area so well."

Juniors at the school were required to read Dr. Jordan-Lake's book over the summer, and many were excited to meet her Thursday.

Tori Henon stayed home sick from school earlier this week, but she made sure to be back in class Thursday to meet the author.

"It's really cool that it happened here. We experience the same thing," she said. "Learning how big the Klan was here was interesting. I'd heard stories from my Dad, but I had no idea."

English teacher Tara Tharp said she happened to pick up "Blue Hole Back Home" in a store while on vacation in Florida. When she realized the novel's location and plot were based on places and events in Signal Mountain, she knew she wanted to use it for class reading.

The book is narrated by Shelby, a teenager who befriends a girl from Sri Lanka who moves to rural North Carolina. The girl's family, who previously saw America as the land of opportunity, faces extreme prejudice and hate.

Ms. Tharp, who grew up on the mountain, said she, too, was surprised at the history of her hometown.

"It feels like you're reading a book from the 1960s -- a civil rights book," she said. "I remember hearing about this stuff, but I didn't believe it. It felt like an urban legend."