Whoreson

American Whoreson. At 47k words, it reads quickly and is suitable for teens and older. While it contains no sex and only minimal violence, it does have politically sensitive subject matter. Therefore, it is not suitable for Trumpists or Evangelicals. America in the late 1800s was a place where a young man with drive and intelligence could rise above class to attain power and wealth. Even someone born near the bottom of society's social ladder could climb past those born higher on the ladder to achieve greatness. Armed only with his intelligence, aggressive personality, and fists, the bastard son of a whore grows up in a town dominated by cotton mills to find his place in America's westward-looking Manifest Destiny. The bastard son of a whore working in a small town dominated by cotton mills, Tobias is tossed out on his own at the age of twelve when his mother is shot by rival clients who also die in the exchange. Even though he witnesses her death, he is too occupied with his survival to spend much time grieving. The death of one of the men responsible for his mother's death creates a job opening for Tobias at the mill, and Tobias jumps into the opportunity to secure his future, at least for now. Two years later, Tobias escapes the mill as it burns down. He rides a short train of boxcars full of finished fabric away from the burning mill to safety. A locomotive collects the boxcars and deposits them in a railyard near the port of Norfolk. He escapes the yard and takes refuge in an abandoned boxcar. While there, he comforts a pregnant negro girl about to give birth and helps inter her body when she dies in childbirth. He is transferred as a civilian contractor assigned to the Quartermaster Corps at Fort Meade, near Sturgis, South Dakota. While there, he witnesses what happens to people who stand in the way of America's Manifest Destiny.

Traveling east after witnessing the aftermath of the Massacre at Wounded Knee, the young man, who had seen more death in his short life than most people encounter in their entire lives, sought to rebuild the ruins of his life. His father had abandoned his mother, who had turned to prostitution to survive. She was shot when he was twelve, leaving him alone. Having learned to read at a very young age, his intelligence and attention to detail took him places typically reserved for his elders. The young man rode the train east, determined to leave the past behind. However, before he even reached his first station, where he would change trains, his circumstances shifted. This could have been just another train ride in a lifetime of journeys, but it was not. This single trip through the snow-covered American Upper Midwest changed the trajectory of his life from that point forward. The young man advanced in stages, moving from one situation to the next, occasionally staying just a step ahead of the law, until he arrived in Florida to tackle a project so large that multiple predecessors had failed. What sort of man would undertake a project of this size, one that would cause as much harm as this one would, and see it through to the end?