Song Yet Sung

(Paperback)

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Publishing Details

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Physical Properties

Description

'A complex, ever-tightening, increasingly suspenseful web'

Washington Post

'Gripping'

New York Times

In the days before the Civil War, an enslaved woman named Liz Spocott escapes from her captors into the labyrinthine swamps of Maryland's eastern shore, setting loose a drama of violence and hope among slave catchers, plantation owners, watermen, runaway slaves and free blacks.

Liz is near death, wracked by disturbing visions of the future, and armed with 'the Code' - a fiercely guarded cryptic means of communication for slaves on the run.

Filled with rich, true details, Song Yet Sung is a story of tragic triumph, dreams of tomorrow and unexpected kindness, from the National Book Award-winning novelist James McBride.

Reviews

McBride has fashioned a myth of retribution and sacrifice that recalls both William Faulkner's sagas of blighted generations and Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. Explosively dramatic * Kirkus (starred review) *
McBride keeps the suspense high as he raises troubling questions about slavery's legacy, the price of freedom and what it means to be human * People *
Powerful . . . A complex, ever-tightening, increasingly suspenseful web * Washington Post Book World *
Gripping, affecting, and beautifully paced, Song Yet Sung illuminates, in the most dramatic fashion, a deeply troubled, vastly complicated moment in American history * O, The Oprah Magazine *
Engrossing * Seattle Times *

Author Bio

James McBride is the author of the New York Times-bestselling Oprah's Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, the million-copy-bestselling memoir The Colour of Water, the novels Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna, the story collection Five-Carat Soul, and Kill 'Em and Leave, a biography of James Brown. The recipient of a National Humanities Medal and an accomplished musician, McBride is also a distinguished writer in residence at New York University.