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An explosive allegorical novel set on the eve of the Civil War, about a gang of men hunted by both the Union and the Confederacy for dealing in stolen slaves.
Geburah Plantation, 1863: in a crumbling estate on the banks of the Mississippi, eight survivors of the notorious Island 37 Gang wait for the war, or the Pinkerton Detective Agency, to claim them. Their leader, a bizarre charismatic known only as "the Redeemer," has already been brought to justice, and each day brings the battling armies closer. The hatred these men feel for one another is surpassed only by their fear of their many pursuers. Into this hell comes a mysterious force, an “avenging angel” that compels them, one by one, to a reckoning of their many sins.
Canaan’s Tongue is rooted in the criminal world of John Murrell, as infamous in his day as Jesse James or Al Capone. It tells the story of his reluctant protégé, Virgil Ball, who derives riches, sexual privilege, and power from the commerce in stolen slaves, known only as “the Trade”—and discovers, when he finally decides to free himself from the Redeemer’s yoke, that the force he is challenging is far more formidable than he imagined. It is as old as the river, as vast as the country itself, and it is with us to this day.
Canaan’s Tongue is a work of extraordinary narrative and emotional power.
"The gothic horror of Canaan's Tongue sometimes grows too shrill to proclaim its critique of American culture clearly, but Wray's magnetic hold on our imagination never flags, and that, in the end, is his most effective demonstration of the power that haunts this faithful land." - The Washington Post.
"Steeped in effective 19th-century archaism, yet steely in sustaining the story, the prose is as poetic as it is violent." - Publishers Weekly.
"His language and descriptive abilities are quite brilliant." - KLIATT.
"At times, it achieves the profundity it aims for; at others, characters that sometimes seem stiff as figures in old daguerreotypes weigh it down." - Library Journal.
"Wray is the real thing, and Canaan's Tongue is itself a masterpiece." - Kirkus Reviews.
This information about Canaan's Tongue was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
John Wray is the author of Godsend, The Lost Time Accidents, Lowboy, Canaan's Tongue, and The Right Hand of Sleep. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, a Cullman Fellowship from the New York Public Library, and a Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. A citizen of the United States and Austria, he lives in New York City.
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