What is the importance of the Shanksted Plantation in the novel, We Cast a Shadow?

In Part One, the narrator and his family attend a company retreat at the Shanksted Plantation, a hotel complex built on the former grounds of a Confederacy-era plantation. Owned by the law firm that employs the narrator, the hotel functions as a satirical image of the ways contemporary racism minimizes or altogether erases historical events. Dark scraps of fabric hang from the tree branches of the manicured lawns, and employees engage in historical reenactments of plantation life while conveniently omitting any existence of slaves.