This book began as a memoir, but from page one, characters stood up and demanded attention I couldn't make happen in a memoir. They whispered in my ear, through my dreams, and they argued with each other, or fussed. They didn't seem to ask for much: a display of seven weeks in 1948 when their worlds altered forever. It turns out they asked for a lot.
It became necessary to change characters' names while writing a novel. (Cady, for example, became Wade). The novelized memoir began as an account of doings between white men and black; and the aftermath of the greatest war in history.
Then the Samuels family got involved. I had not known them personally because no one did. I only witnessed their separate deaths. As the awful stories that lay behind those deaths surfaced, the first two drafts of the book hit the round file.
A new book appeared. If it is successful you'll get at least some feel of an American city as it was after WWII; a business-y city that after 83 years still held roots in the Confederacy. Some of what characters say comes from memory which remains acute. Some will reflect what 'had to have been', for while I could trace lives and actions, I could not fully know all thoughts. Use of racial terms, as of 1948, is precise.
Nearly all of these folks have now passed into history. I wrote with an urgency that said they deserve to be remembered.