About this item
"A beautifully-written and ambitious epic about the complexity of freedom." - Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half. An epic novel set in mid-nineteenth-century America about the spiritual costs of a freedom that demands fierce protection. In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours.. It is in this miraculous place that Saint's grand experiment - a truly secluded community where her people may flourish - takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own.
About the Author
Phillip B. Williams is the author of Thief in the Interior, winner of the 2017 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a 2017 Lambda Literary award, and finalist for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature (Poetry) and a Thom Gunn Award from the Publishing Triangle. He received a 2017 Whiting Award, 2013 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and a Kenyon Review Writers Workshop fellowship. Phillip is the co-editor in chief of the online journal Vinyl. He is currently visiting professor in English at Bennington College.
