Cloudsplitter

Description: Owen Brown is the last surviving son of America's most famous political terrorist, John Brown, who in 1859 raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, intending to galvanise the Southern slaves into rebellion. Now Owen tells John's story. This incredible novel recreates pre-Civil War America, when slavery was tearing the country apart, and tells of one man's passage from abolitionist to guerrilla fighter and, finally, martyr. 'Cloudsplitter' is a dazzling, suspenseful, heartbreaking story filled with both intimate scenes of domestic life and chilling violence. Review: 'A splendid epic ... a marvellous book' Time Out 'A startling work of vision ... A great American novel' Independent 'It is surely his best novel, a furious, sprawling drama that commands attention like thunder heard from just over the horizon' Time 'An utterly compelling story, a tragedy of near-classic proportions with extraordinary resonances' Financial Times Author Biography: Russell Banks is the critically acclaimed author of Cloudsplitter, The Sweet Hereafter (the film by Atom Egoyan won the Grand Prix and International Critics Prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival), Rule of the Bone, Continental Drift and The Darling, amongst others. A winner of numerous fellowships and prizes, he writes regularly for Vanity Fair, the New York Times Book Review, Esquire and Harper's. Russell Banks currently lives in upstate New York.