About this item
For fans of Cold Mountain and The Invention of Wings comes "a tour de force of historical fiction" (Henry Wiencek, author of Master of the Mountain) that follows the epic journey of a slave-turned-Comanche warrior who travels from the brutality of a New Orleans sugar cane plantation to the indomitable frontier of an untamed Texas, searching not only for the woman he loves but so too for his own identity.I have been to hangings before, but never my own. Sitting in a jail cell on the eve of his hanging, April 1, 1875, freedman Persimmon "Persy" Wilson wants nothing more than to leave some record of the truth - his truth. He may be guilty, but not of what he stands accused: the kidnapping and rape of his former master's wife. In 1860, Persy had been sold to Sweetmore, a Louisiana sugar plantation, alongside a striking, light-skinned house slave named Chloe. Their deep and instant connection fueled a love affair and inspired plans to escape their owner, Master Wilson, who claimed Chloe as his concubine. But on the eve of the Union Army's attack on New Orleans, Wilson shot Persy, leaving him for dead, and fled with Chloe and his other slaves to Texas. So began Persy's journey across the frontier, determined to reunite with his lost love. Along the way, he would be captured by the Comanche, his only chance of survival to prove himself fierce and unbreakable enough to become a warrior. His odyssey of warfare, heartbreak, unlikely friendships, and newfound family would change the very core of his identity and teach him the meaning and the price of freedom. From the author of the New York Times Notable Book Life Without Water, The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson is a sweeping love story that "is as deeply moving and exciting an American saga as has ever been penned" (Lee Smith, author of Dimestore) .
About the Author
My first love is fiction. My second love is memoir. My third love is poetry. My fourth love is good food, and I can't have any of my three other loves without this one. I sometimes envy the poets because I imagine (although I might be wrong about this) that they live in the moment more than novelists or memoirists. Novelists live in two parallel worlds, the real one with the dishes in the sink, and the fictional one, which may or may not have dishes in the sink, but which is certainly peopled with characters we find interesting and grow to love, and whom we must sometimes kill off. Memoirists live, by necessity, in the past, their own past, which is not always a comfortable place to be. But a poet can chop parsley and turn it into a good dish, and a poem. I admire that.
I think I must live the most outwardly boring life in the whole world. I always thought I was a pretty interesting person until I started trying to convince other people of it. Aside from my own classes in my studio and a free prompts workshop which I teach each month, and my own writing group, I do very little but work on my next book and cook good food. Honestly, when someone asks me what I am up to, I always feel dull and inadequate, but I'm a homebody, and that's how I get my work done.
If I am lucky then you have read one or maybe more of my books, and if I am extremely lucky then you may be asking when the next one is coming out. It's a very good question. One that I hope to have an answer to if you ask again.
