Cloudsplitter »

Best known for gritty novels like Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks is one of America's most prestigious fiction writers. He is president of the International Parliament of Writers and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into 20 languages and has received numerous international prizes and awards. He lives in upstate New York.

From a hermit's shack on an isolated California mountaintop, Owen Brown, the only surviving son of abolitionist John Brown, reminisces over his role in his father's bloody crusade -- from maintaining the Underground Railroad in upstate New York to battling proslavery settlers in Kansas to the fateful raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Massive in scope and brimming with love, hatred, revenge, and unbridled ego, Cloudsplitter is a dazzling re-creation of the political and social landscape of America in the years before the Civil War.

Playboy Magazine

Powerfully told....A long meditation on America's shameful enslavement of four million people....It is also a captivating portrait of a 19th-century family.