A Free State: A Novel - Hardcover

A Free State: A Novel

Hardcover. Zustand: As New. Zustand des Schutzumschlags: As New. 1st Edition. First Edition, 1st printing. Bright, clean & tight copy, unread, in AS NEW condition. "The year is 1855. Blackface minstrelsy is the most popular form of entertainment in a nation about to be torn apart by the battle over slavery. Henry Sims, a fugitive slave and a brilliant musician, has escaped to Philadelphia, where he lives by his wits and earns money performing on the street. He is befriended by James Douglass--leader of the Virginia Harmonists, a minstrel troupe struggling to compete with dozens of similar ensembles--who senses that Henry's skill and magnetism could restore his show's sagging fortunes. The problem is that black performers are not allowed to appear onstage, even in Philadelphia. Together the two concoct a dangerous masquerade to protect Henry's identity, and he creates a sensation in his first appearances with the Harmonists. Yet even as the troupe's fortunes begin to improve, a brutal slave hunter named Tull Burton has been employed by Henry's former master to track down the runaway and retrieve him, dead or alive. [] A FREE STATE is both a riveting chase novel and a searing parable of liberty and its costs. Charged with narrative tension and unforgettable characters, A FREE STATE is a thrilling work by a novelist at the height of his powers." [jacket copy] "A FREE STATE takes you into a past time and an unfamiliar world, and yet it resonates strongly with the familiar present. It has great kinetic energy, a gripping central narrative, and a host of indelible characters. It raises questions about the intersections of identity, race, power, and culture. It delicately unravels the convoluted pathways of minstrelsy as a salve to the conscience. And, in the current age of identity politics, it speaks to the prevailing cultural obsession with 'authenticity' by exposing the fragility of that very notion. A hugely rewarding novel."--Monica Ali. "Once I'd begun reading Tom Piazza's A FREE STATE, I couldn't leave my chair. It combines bite-your-nails tension with deeply felt evocations of the brutalities of slavery, the perplexities of racial masquerading, and the transcendent joys of making music. Piazza is unerringly accurate on both nineteenth-century voices and nineteenth-century sensibilities, but he's got a twenty-first-century aesthetic: at the end of the novel he executes a swerve so bold--and that's all I'm telling--it'll take your breath away."--David Gates. "Informed by history of a reviled and forgotten idiom, loving scholarship about the banjo, and the very passport to freedom of body and spirit, this beautiful writing finds echoes in conflicts that persist--envy, imitation, injustice, brutality, inequality--and ultimately offers hope. I urge you to read it for yourself."--Elvis Costello. Pristine hardcover w/brilliant corners & crisp edges, a square & tight binding, wrapped in a handsome & intact jacket. Artikel-Nr. RUB2716

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