In the book one person, Negro Alexander, is very important but never appears in the story. But .he is the only real person in the book - all others are fictional. There are only two things known about Negro Alexander; he was alive in 1828 and he was a slave at that time in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In the book the inventory in which Alexander is listed he is named Negro Alexander. The inventory, the house, and the cistern are all real. The town, Lenoir, and all of the characters are fictional.The crux of the book is the account of an attempt to find out more about Alexander by the young woman who purchased the house where he served and once may have lived. The house is one of the oldest in the country, dating from the 1780's. The woman, Jan, is a professional musician who plays with an orchestra in Baltimore. While in the house she is given a document, an inventory of personal property written in 1828. It is the inventory of the property of the man who owned Alexander and who died in 1827. It proves Alexander's existence. When she is in her new house she realizes that some major repairs are needed and hires a local character to do them. A friendship develops between the two of them. She also discovers some discarded antiques in a cistern and has part of her property declared a crime scene. In the course of her search for information about Alexander she interviews a man, possibly a descendant of Alexander, who played professional baseball and once got a hit off of Satchel Paige. She also attends the funeral of a new friend, the man who did the repair work on her new home. A major element in the book is how Jan, the female lead, falls in love with the attorney who gave her the inventory of personal property. She also gets to know a number of the people in the town including the current funeral director, several women in a local