Book excerpt: A grand epic saga by Robert McKenzie, The Chair series spans centuries, touching the lives of 22 generations of related mothers and daughters, their stories witnessed by a simple pine chair. Resolute, strong, loving, and fiercely protective, these women must strive to pass their values to new generations in a world of racism and sexism, politics, scandal, fashion—even the rise and dominance of baseball. They live in privilege and poverty, with faith and despair, relishing every moment of love even as they suffer abiding grief. In Volume III: Seven, Eight, & Nine, the chair flashes back to pre-Civil War America, featuring a woman from the second Mayflower, her daughter the black-market Irish lace importer, and a Canadian World War I fighter pilot. A blend of history and philosophy told through satire and parody, the story of The Chair could be found in some old trunk in any dusty old attic, but McKenzie breathes it alive with riveting tales that span the real and the imagined.