Cloudsplitter

This thoroughly researched novel is Russell Banks's take on John Brown, who raided the federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in 1859 in an attempt to start a slave rebellion. Told from the point of view of Owen, the only one remaining of Brown's 20 children (by two wives), this is a complex portrait of a fiercely committed abolitionist who was willing to die a martyr for the cause. It is also a detailed look at a particularly troubled period in American history, as it explores both political and social life in the course of a story about a man who was doing his best to profoundly change both.

"[A]s history, it is a very bad book indeed: characters and incidents have been altered, rearranged and reinvented, and speculative analysis, ungrounded in the historical record, has been slathered over Brown's entire life. As a novel, however, 'Cloudsplitter' makes for some highly entertaining--and at times, deeply affecting -- reading. For all its flaws, it emerges as Banks' most ambitious and fully realized novel since 'Continental Drift'..." - John R. Oneal (New York Times, 2/17/98)

"Banks' extensive research is impressive, but his account of Brown's son Owen is scattered with psychological anachronisms that undermine the vividly textured story." - Osamu Nishikawa (Salon, 12/24/98)

"Banks handles his epic material cleanly, staying close to the ground of his story and moving forward one step at a time....The pace is stately, not rushed....At times, the book reads like a tale of the North Woods, a boy's adventure story....Here and there the writing grows slow and solemn, and Owen's meditative ruminations tend to wander on, but the book has an underlying tidal flow that rolls the story inevitably forward." - Supryia M. Ray (Salon, 2/22/98)

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