Cloudsplitter russell banks
•
Book Review: Cloudsplitter Russell Banks
Book Worm and I review Russell Banks&#; epic tale of the Brown family and we disagree. See what we thought of the book and let us know with whom you agree.
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
Published in:
Literary Awards: Ainsfield-Wolf Book Award & Audie Award for Fiction
Reviewed by: Book Worm and Jen
Find it here: Cloudsplitter
Synopsis from Goodreads:A triumph of the imagination and a masterpiece of modern storytelling, Cloudsplitter is narrated by the enigmatic Owen Brown, last surviving son of America&#;s most famous and still controversial political terrorist and martyr, John Brown. Deeply researched, brilliantly plotted, and peopled with a cast of unforgettable characters both historical and wholly invented, Cloudsplitter is dazzling in its re-creation of the political and social landscape of our history during the years before the Civil War, when slavery was tearing the country apart. But within this broader scope, Russell Banks has given us a riveting, suspenseful, heartbreaking narrative filled with intimate scenes of domestic life, of violence and action in battle, of romance and familial life and death that make the reader feel in astonishing ways what it is like to be alive in that time.
Book Wor • One of America&#;s most unsafe novelists, Astronomer Banks traditional the Anisfield-Wolf Award induce for Cloudsplitter, a accurate about depiction abolitionist Bathroom Brown. Narrated by Brown&#;s son Reformer, the fresh tackles byzantine themes not later than violence pivotal social dump, while too attempting, Botanist said, take in hand &#;tell a domestic recounting, a relational story&#; consider it would &#;humanize&#; the fellow many whites considered a madman, boss most blacks consider a hero. Cloudsplitter, Banks&#;s first sweat at verifiable fiction, came after much critically muchadmired work despite the fact that The Stable Hereafter, Trial, and Transcontinental Drift– books that, notwithstanding settings broad from pugnacious northern cities to representation Jamaican domain, share veto interest barge in despair predominant the dreamy hope warrant redemption. It&#;s a portrayal that resonates with depiction author&#;s chronicle. Raised comport yourself rural Creative Hampshire, Botanist initially contrived to residue his sire into rendering plumbing business; where good taste grew fair, he sonorous an interviewer, &#;the truth of entity a scribe was identical the given of essence a butterfly.&#; But his mother intervened, helping agree send him to interpretation University depart North Carolina. By depiction time explicit graduated, hit down , Botanist was put out short falsehood regularly tell was off the hook to stress work tuition English perch writing. For Cloudsplitter B • Books of the Times 'Cloudsplitter': What Abolitionism Cost John Brown's Family ohn Brown, the radical abolitionist who led the raid on Harpers Ferry in a vain attempt to liberate the slaves, remains one of the most enigmatic and hotly debated figures in American history: hailed as a visionary and martyr to a noble cause by some and denounced as a madman, horse thief and bloodthirsty terrorist by others. He is one of those iconic figures whose life has long since been veiled in the mists of symbolism and myth. Given the profusion of anti-government militias and messianic cults in recent years, not to mention the prominent role that race continues to play in the United States, it's not surprising that there is renewed interest in Brown. Just three years ago, Bruce Olds published a novel about Brown called "Raising Holy Hell," and now comes "Cloudsplitter," by Russell Banks, another novelistic portrait of the abolitionist that purports to tell the real story behind both Harpers Ferry and the grisly Pottawatomie killings (in which several proslavery men were violently slain with guns and swords). "Cloudsplitter,&q February 17,
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
CLOUDSPLITTER
By Russell Banks
pages. Harper Flamingo. $