New Novel Traces
History of Clarion County

By Hank Hufnagel

     If you've visited the Narrows Overlook near East Brady in recent days, you were probably pleased to find the many small trees that had gradually grown to obscure the view have been removed. Now you can look down on a magnificent stretch of the Allegheny as it twists through the hills and begins the 8-mile turn that in the early days was called the "Great Bend in the Allegheny." In 1779, Capt. Samuel Brady rescued a pair of kidnapped children, a brother and a sister, from Indians raiders somewhere along this stretch of river. It was shortly after the heroic rescue that people started calling the place "Brady's Bend."
     Old stories of Clarion County, like Brady's rescue, have fascinated me for many years, and I have long lists to help me remember them all. However, knowing the bare facts of the tales is one thing, visualizing what it must have been like back in those olden times is quite another. And so three years ago, I decided to write a novel that would allow readers to experience some of the old stories on a more personal level. Somehow I would find a way to gather a couple dozen of them together in a single work of fiction. Right from the start, I knew Chapter 1 would be about Brady's ambush. Picking the others, figuring how to knit them all together and then writing the actual book took a few years. There are worse hobbies, and it was always fun, but I was a happy man when I finally sent the finished work off to the printer.
     Toby’s Curse follows the fortunes of a fictional family during the time period from 1779 to 2005. Readers get to experience the excitement of a circular hunt near New Athens in 1828, a visit to Ben Hogan's Floating Palace of Pleasure at Parker’s Landing in 1872, Shorty Cramer’s daredevil airplane stunts in Clarion in 1924, and the aftermath of Black Friday in New Bethlehem in 1996. That’s just four of the stories contained in the book. There are 22 others, set in Fryburg, Rimersburg, Knox, Clarion, New Bethlehem, Cook Forest, Sligo and at other, less known, places. Each chapter begins with a page of illustrations from old books and newspapers that help readers better imagine the changing times as the novel progresses toward its thrilling conclusion.
     Toby’s Curse is 350 pages long and costs $19.95. If you read the book, afterward you might want to click here to go to a sort of bulletin board about the book. I’ll be interested to hear what you think of my latest venture into fiction.