DISCLAIMER: I have had many Internet conversations with John Garst. So I have perhaps something of a bias.

That said, I do not hesitate to recommend this little pamphlet to anyone interested in the history of the song "Delia's Gone." It is a song based on a real event -- the killing of Delia Green by her boyfriend (possibly common-law husband) Moses "Coonie" Houston. Over the years, like any folk song, it evolved dramatically, with the original truth largely forgotten.

The original truth as far as it can be known, anyway. Garst shows us how much has been forgotten. There is conflicting testimony about the relationship between Delia and Coonie; conflicting testimony about how the fatal shot was fired; conflicting testimony even about the sort of house in which it happened. Delia and Coonie were both Blacks in 1900 Savannah, Georgia; the people who knew them best were mostly not able to leave accounts, and the local authorities didn't really care. Delia was dead, and Coonie was just another body to be put on a chain gang and rented out somewhere, and who cared what the real truth was?

I wish we knew more. Garst asks some questions that I don't like to think about, such as "Was Delia a prostitute?" He does not present Coonie's prison career in a very kind light. And he can't resolve much of the story. But I know John Garst. When he gets on a scent, he follows it. If this pamphlet raises more questions than it answers, it's because the remaining questions can no longer be answered. ( )