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Sweetsmoke Paperback – September 8, 2009

by David Fuller (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 69 ratings
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The year is 1862, and the Civil War rages through the South. On a Virginia tobacco plantation, another kind of battle soon begins. There, Cassius Howard, a skilled carpenter and slave, risks everything -- punishment, sale to a cotton plantation, even his life -- to learn the truth concerning the murder of Emoline, a freed black woman, a woman who secretly taught him to read and once saved his life. It is clear that no one cares about her death in the midst of a brutal and hellish war. No one but Cassius, who braves horrific dangers to escape the plantation and avenge her loss.

As Cassius seeks answers about Emoline's murder, he finds an unexpected friend and ally in Quashee, a new woman brought over from another plantation; and a formidable adversary in Hoke Howard, the master he has always obeyed.

With subtlety and beauty, Sweetsmoke captures the daily indignities and harrowing losses suffered by slaves, the turmoil of a country waging countless wars within its own borders, and the lives of those people fighting for identity, for salvation, and for freedom.
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  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    September 8, 2009
  4. Reading age
    18 years and up
  5. Dimensions
    5.25 x 0.83 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1401310052
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1401310059
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Fuller has been a screenwriter for 25 years. He became fascinated with the role of African Americans in World War II as a young man when he befriended an African American pilot and worked closely with him for years. Fuller lives in Los Angeles with his wife, a VP for Twentieth Century Fox, and twin sons. Sweetsmoke is his first novel.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hachette Books (September 8, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1401310052
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1401310059
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.83 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 69 ratings

About the author

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David Fuller

David Fuller

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After twenty-five years toiling in the Hollywood studio system, David Fuller has abandoned the movies and now lives quietly as a recovering screenwriter.

David Fuller was born in Chicago, Illinois and lived there until, at age 7, his family moved to Vienna, Austria. Three years later, the family moved to Barcelona, Spain for a year. Then back to the States for the sixth grade.

Fuller spent a year at the Rhode Island School of Design, intending to become a painter. He gave up that dream and later graduated from Brown University.

Of the more than fifty screenplays Fuller has written, many were sold and a few were made into movies or TV pilots. A handful of them have his real name on them. Others carry his pseudonym. The ones with his actual name include Necessary Roughness, The Heist, and Gang in Blue.

He wrote and directed the Imagen nominated short film The Ticket, for Fox Searchlab.

His first novel, SWEETSMOKE, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author, as well as being shortlisted for a John Creasy "New Blood" Dagger Award in Great Britain. It was a Discover Great New Writers pick for Barnes & Noble, and an Original Voices pick for Borders.

​

Fuller lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife of more than thirty years, while his excellent and amusing sons are in college.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
69 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

booknblueslady
5.0 out of 5 stars Complex and Gripping
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2013
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Sweetsmoke by David Fuller is a mystery. Sweetsmoke by David Fuller is a character study. Sweetsmoke by David Fuller is a historical fiction. It is truly all of these and more. David Fuller spent eight years researching and writing this novel about a plantation called Sweetsmoke set in 1862 during the Civil War. His work is deeply moving, with prose that brings the reader into the setting and characters which are complex and interesting. Fuller does not shy away from the conflicts and personality disorders which occur when one group of people "own" another and this is part of the appeal of the story and it is a gripping and exciting story.

I was so impressed with Fuller's development of the central character, Cassius Howard, a slave who was trained by the plantation owner, Hoke Howard, as a carpenter and as such was given certain freedom and was on occasion lent to other plantation to help them in their buildings. Cassius is a reflective, intelligent and secret individual with great strength of character along with many internal conflicts:

"Sounds of the plantation slipped in clear and bright, then were just as quickly muffled, a fragment of work song followed by a ghostly stillness, the drifting laughter of children, blown away by the rush of overhead wind. A deep ache built inside him as he listened to people living, working and being together. A fierce and terrible melancholy gripped him and he did not understand why the feeling made him desire to live.
Finally, a breath of breeze passed under the brim of his hat and cooled the sweat, and Cassius was released from the moment."

When Cassius learns that Emoline, the free woman who helped him when he was deeply injured, has been murdered, he vows to find out who murdered her and avenge her. While Cassius is given certain freedoms as a carpenter his quest his still fraught with such danger, that it keeps the reader on edge and unable to put the book down. I know as I read through much of a night.

The Civil War is ever present and the way in which Howard managed to incorporate into the book is interesting and exciting. For the civil war enthusiast, I believe this will prove to be a must read. I found that I needed to do some research while reading it and was reward for doing so, a secret I will not divulge in this review.

Fuller is a screenwriter and I could easily see this adapted as a movie. I hear that Fuller is working on another novel and my hope is that he writes another book about Cassius, because I want to know what will happen to him next.
3 people found this helpful
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Jim Duggins, Ph.D.
5.0 out of 5 stars Slave and Owner. No One Wins.
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2009
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If you like American history and historical fiction, David Fuller's debut novel, "Sweetsmoke," is a book you'll want to own. At it's core, "Sweeetsmoke" is the story of a slave solving a murder on a Virginia plantation during the time of the civil war. But, the book is more -- so much more that it would take more than its 308 pages to tell all the truly great things about it. It's the story of an entire family of plantation slave owners. It's the story of an entire community of slaves in the big house and in "the quarters." It's the story of the southern states and cruelties exercised to keep some people in chains and others rich. It's also the story of north and south and the thousands of gallons of blood spilled for reasons never understood by many, maybe most,of the troops on both sides.

The slave, Cassius Howard (a surname courtesy of his master), is a highly intelligent, secretly educated (a slave who is literate could lose his life), articulate man with a keen moral sense and a profound respect for justice. When one of his closest protectors, Emoline, is murdered and the plantation owner, his most frequent benefactor, is taken mortally ill, Cassius sees the world he has known crumbling beneath his feet. In that light, he decides to find and punish Emoline's assassin. This fine book has, of course, sub plots and backstories to support the action, and to keep the reader glued to the page long after his forgotten dinner has turned to cinders in the over. What's more, I found the narrative and his writerly style well worth the loss of dinner.

Mr. Fuller's superb development of character may be the element that makes this splendid book work. His characters are fleshed out with credible motives that let us know why they think the way they do, why they do the things they do. He accounts for the characters' prior histories to portray their growth ( e.g., in a world of slavery, the consequences of anything but subservience can be fatal). I found Mr. Fuller's obsrvations about the cast of characers, slaves and slave catchers, plantation owners (men and women) to be sound and often profound.

Again, author Fuller's skill as a writer is demonstrated in dozens of ways, the following small excerpts from a battlefield will tell you what to expect in "Sweetsmoke": "A series of overlapping extraordinary booms sucked the air, the sky shrieked, and from a huge sudden stunning concussive burst squeezed his skull and slapped his body flat against the ground, knocking his breath completely away. Deaf, dirt-mouthed, desperately fighting for air, ears filling with a gush of rushing white river noise that quickly narrowed into a high pitched whine". If one doubts his poetic talents and use of language, Fuller says it all in the single deft sentence describing bullets flying on the battlefield: "So many projectiles, so many that it seemed like the air itself was enraged, spewing vengeful hornets riding hurrican winds." And, finally, "He stepped cautiously around the dead, an intricate chore as they carpeted the area."

I personally found one of the most touching points of this deeply emotional novel lay in the sequence following the deaths of thousands of blues and grays. In that scene, Cassius sees an officer forced to shoot his lamed horse turn away with tears streaming down his face. We are not told whether or not the officer wept for his lost comrades. In my opinionm, David Fuller's Sweetsmoke" will be judged one of the best books of the year, perhaps of the decade.
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2015
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Good story from a different perspective.
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Sweetladysutton
4.0 out of 5 stars Let My People Go!
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2016
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Cassius, a slave on a tobacco plantation in Virginia in 1862, Sweetsmoke. Surprisingly, he survives in a twisted world. Even though he is privileged to work as a carpenter instead of a field hand, he is in constant danger of losing his humanity.
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IndianaJane
5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging and enlightening
Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2008
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Sweetsmoke is an evocative title. It draws in the senses and sets a mood. The novel does the same. It draws us into the life of Cassius, a slave on the Sweetsmoke plantation during the Civil War, and gives us a sense of the sights, sounds, and smells of that life. Even more importantly, though, it imparts, more effectively than any book that I've read, what it means to be a slave, what it means to be an intelligent adult treated as a child or property.

I love historical fiction and this book has all of the elements of great historical fiction. The main character is compelling and many of the others are multi-dimensional. There is a clear sense of place and a wonderful integration of the historical events taking place at that time. David Fuller spent years researching this book, and it shows. The historical details are right .

The writing is skillful and descriptive. Several times while I was reading the book I had the thought that it would make a wonderful movie, and I think that that was due--at least in part--to the fact that Fuller brought his skills as a screenwriter to the writing of this book.
Highly recommended.
4 people found this helpful
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LuluReads365
2.0 out of 5 stars This story was just too unrealistic and quite boring and long winded in certain parts
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2018
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This story contained a very interesting premise, but imagine Detective Alex Cross as a slave during the Civil War. Can you picture it? Nah....it didn't work. This story was just too unrealistic and quite boring and long winded in certain parts.
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Top reviews from other countries

2 Many Notes Mozart
5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary piece of work. I should know
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2022
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Matt
5.0 out of 5 stars Good book and good condition
Reviewed in Canada on July 21, 2019
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Book arrived in good condition. Very happy with it
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Mr. A. Grant
5.0 out of 5 stars Sweet Smoke
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 14, 2012
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A brilliantly engaging book, one of those sometimes rare finds, a real page turner. Captured the atmosphere of the American Civil War and slavery in a superb way.
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