“Superlative, gorgeously written…[and] scorchingly brilliant.” Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author
Description
For a runaway slave in the 1840s South, life on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic master. That’s what fifteen-year-old Naomi learns after she escapes the brutal confines of life on an Alabama plantation. Striking out on her own, she leaves behind her beloved Momma and sister Hazel and takes refuge in a Georgia brothel run by a freewheeling, gun-toting Jewish madam named Cynthia. There, amid a revolving door of gamblers, prostitutes, and drunks, Naomi falls into a star-crossed love affair with a smooth-talking white man named Jeremy who frequents the brothel’s dice tables all too often.
The product of Naomi and Jeremy’s union is Josey, whose white skin and blonde hair mark her as different from the other slave children on the plantation. Having been taken in as an infant by a free slave named Charles, Josey has never known her mother, who was murdered at her birth. Josey soon becomes caught in the tide of history when news of the Emancipation Proclamation reaches the declining estate and a day of supposed freedom quickly turns into a day of unfathomable violence that will define Josey—and her lost mother—for years to come.
Deftly weaving together the stories of Josey and Naomi—who narrates the entire novel, unable to leave her daughter alone in the land of the living—Grace is a sweeping, intergenerational saga featuring a group of outcast women during one of the most compelling eras in American history. It is a universal story of freedom, love, and motherhood, told in a dazzling and original voice and set against a rich and transporting historical backdrop.
Praise
“Superlative, gorgeously written…[and] scorchingly brilliant.” Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author
“[An] immersive tale…You’ll believe every word.” People
“There are moments of love in this harsh, affecting first novel, but the story mostly conveys the taking of personal freedom and human dignity.” Library Journal
“A swirling wild ride into the sheer terror of slavery…The women and men in this novel transcend all notions of what we’ve read before.” Susan Straight, author of Between Heaven and Here
“A book that sustains a murder ballad’s intensity for hundreds of pages and gets into your bones like a song.” Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Jun 13, 2016 |
| Release Date | June 14, 2016 |
| Release Date Machine | 1465862400 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Blackstone Publishing |
| Categories | Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Literary Fiction, Fiction - All, Fiction - Adult |
Author Bio
Natashia Deón is the recipient of a PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship and has been awarded fellowships and residencies at Yale, the Bread Loaf School of English, Dickinson House in Belgium, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her stories and essays have appeared in the Rumpus, Rattling Wall, B O D Y, Feminist Wire, and You: An Anthology of Second Person Essays, among others. Named one of 2013’s Most Fascinating People by LA Weekly, she has an MFA from the University of California, Riverside, and is the creator of the popular LA-based reading series Dirty Laundry Lit. She has taught creative writing for Gettysburg College, PEN Center USA, and 826LA. A practicing lawyer, she currently teaches law at Trinity Law School and Mount Saint Mary’s University.
Narrator Bio
Lisa Reneé Pitts is an accomplished actress in theater, film, and television, appearing in The Practice, The Shield, and Law & Order. A native New Yorker, she holds a BFA in theater arts from Rutgers University and resides in Burbank, California.
Overview
For a runaway slave in the 1840s South, life on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic master. That’s what fifteen-year-old Naomi learns after she escapes the brutal confines of life on an Alabama plantation. Striking out on her own, she leaves behind her beloved Momma and sister Hazel and takes refuge in a Georgia brothel run by a freewheeling, gun-toting Jewish madam named Cynthia. There, amid a revolving door of gamblers, prostitutes, and drunks, Naomi falls into a star-crossed love affair with a smooth-talking white man named Jeremy who frequents the brothel’s dice tables all too often.
The product of Naomi and Jeremy’s union is Josey, whose white skin and blonde hair mark her as different from the other slave children on the plantation. Having been taken in as an infant by a free slave named Charles, Josey has never known her mother, who was murdered at her birth. Josey soon becomes caught in the tide of history when news of the Emancipation Proclamation reaches the declining estate and a day of supposed freedom quickly turns into a day of unfathomable violence that will define Josey—and her lost mother—for years to come.
Deftly weaving together the stories of Josey and Naomi—who narrates the entire novel, unable to leave her daughter alone in the land of the living—Grace is a sweeping, intergenerational saga featuring a group of outcast women during one of the most compelling eras in American history. It is a universal story of freedom, love, and motherhood, told in a dazzling and original voice and set against a rich and transporting historical backdrop.
Reviews
Write Your Own Review