Contents

E-Book Extras:

Promise of the Past: An Interview with Sena Jeter Naslund

The Facts behind the Fiction: Key Dates in the Civil Rights Movement

Reading Group Guide: Discussion Points for Four Spirits A Novel by Sena Jeter Naslund

In Memoriam

Epigraphs

Prelude Old Times there, 1948

Helicon, Alabama

One Unleashing the Dogs, May 1963

Stella

Christine

Edmund

Darl

Bobby Jones

TJ

At the Athens

Gloria at Home

Edmund at Home

Christine Walking

Fielding’s Department Store

Mr. Fielding

At the Bankhead Hotel

On the Vespa

Night Duty

Night Pleasure

Christine at Home

Engaged

Fred Shuttlesworth

Wanting Bach

King

The Telephone, the Microphone

Ryder Jones

Gloria’s Thought Book

Ryder’s Second House

Lee

Martini: Christine and Gloria

At Fielding’s

After Business Hours

At Her Desk

At the Gaslight

Two The Slaughter of the Innocents, September 1963

Gloria

Pimento Dream

At Woolworth’s

Susan Spenser Oaks

Kind of a Growl

Huddled Together

Rubble

The Face of Christ

Someone Small

Homeward

Old Aunt Charlotte

At the Cartwrights’

Four Lambs

Trials

Edmund’s Memoir: I Begin Work and Study

Three O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, November 1963

Box of Moonlight

How the News Came to the Joneses

Stella’s Odyssey

Dear Self

Lionel Parrish: Letter to the Four Families, December 1

Edmund’s Memoir: A Christmas Story in Retrospect

Four The Oven, Summer 1964

New Work, New Life

H.O.P.E.

Driving Home

Stella’s Aunts

Lionel’s Office

In the Oven

Aftermath: Living It Again

Aftermath: “Träumerei”

Aftermath: Arcola at the Dressing Table

Aftermath: Home for the Night

Cahaba

Afternoon Roses

Night Again: Caryatid

Humming in the Heat

Aunt Pratt Alone

Lee Plays Barber

Dappled Light

Fans for August

View from Outside

Four Spirits

Lions Lounging

An Office Call

Picasso’s Bull

Catherine’s Story: A Friend of the Body

Five Seed People, September 1964

Dear Donny

He Doesn’t

In the Basement

Night Riders

Resurrection

What’s the Matter?

Answers

Lionel Watching

Close to Earth

Agnes’s Honeybees

How to Dream

Jonathan, the Pianist

Dear Self

Saturday Morning: Edmund

Saturday Morning: Lee

Saturday: Agnes

Saturday: Lee

Saturday: Lionel

Saturday: Cat

Saturday: Gloria

Joseph Coat-of-Many-Colors

I, Gloria

Stella Listening

Six Spirits in the Snow, January 1965

Jonathan

New Year’s Party, 1965

Stella

Postlude Bringing in the Sheaves

Helicon Homecoming

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

About the Author

By Sena Jeter Naslund

Copyright

About the Publisher