Summary: With John Rolfe of Virginia, James Tormey is the first to publish an account of the Jamestown colonization from Rolfe's point of view. The tale is usually told from the perspective of John Smith or Pocahontas. Tormey's historical novel begins in the year 1609 and covers a 13-year period until Rolfe's death in 1622 at the age of 37. Rolfe's life was "crammed full of adventure," Tormey says, including shipwreck, mutiny, and death. It also covers Rolfe's cultivation of tobacco and his marriage to Pocahontas, which brought a blessing of peace to the colony. In this 2-minute video, appropriately filmed at the 2006 Virginia Festival of the Book, Tormey describes some of the things he learned during his research for this novel.
