Amity
A Novel
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $19.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Sweetness of Water comes a gripping story about a brother and sister, emancipated from slavery but still searching for true freedom, and their odyssey across the deserts of Mexico to escape a former master still intent on their bondage.
New Orleans, 1866. The Civil War might be over, but formerly enslaved Coleman and June have yet to find the freedom they’ve been promised. Two years ago, the siblings were separated when their old master, Mr. Harper, took June away to Mexico, where he hoped to escape the new reality of the postbellum South. Coleman stayed behind in Louisiana to serve the Harper family, clinging to the hope that one day June would return.
When an unexpected letter from Mr. Harper arrives, summoning Coleman to Mexico, Coleman thinks that finally his prayers have been answered. What Coleman cannot know is the tangled truth of June’s tribulations under Mr. Harper out on the frontier. And when disaster strikes Coleman’s journey, he is forced on the run with Mr. Harper's daughter, Florence. Together, they venture into the Mexican desert to find June, all the while evading two crooked brothers who'll stop at nothing to capture Coleman and Florence and collect the money they're owed. As Coleman and June separately navigate a perilous, parched landscape, the siblings learn quickly that freedom isn't always given—sometimes, it must be taken by force.
As in his New York Times bestselling debut The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris delves into the critical years of the Civil War’s aftermath to deliver an intimate and epic tale of what freedom means in a society still determined to return its Black citizens to bondage. Populated with unforgettable characters, Amity is a vital addition to the literature of emancipation.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Mixing historical fiction with revisionist Western and coming-of-age tropes, Nathan Harris’ soulful, suspenseful second novel is not to be missed. Coleman and June are enslaved siblings serving the Harpers of New Orleans. After the Civil War, patriarch Wyatt Harper hightails it to Mexico with June in tow. Years later, a circuitous series of events tosses Coleman and the Harpers’ daughter, Florence, together in search of Wyatt and June. The going gets deadly, and the reserved Coleman—far from a natural-hero type—must summon some serious inner strength. Meanwhile, June’s fighting her way through her own thorny path to freedom. Whether he’s depicting the brutal beauty of the Mexican desert or digging deep into his characters’ inner lives, Harris’ prose and dialogue are both period appropriate and gorgeously evocative. Heart-stopping and historically fascinating in equal amounts, Amity comes out swinging.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The vivid sophomore novel from Harris (The Sweetness of Water) follows a formerly enslaved brother and sister in the tumultuous aftermath of the Civil War. June has done her best to protect her dreamy, bookish younger brother, Coleman, from the Harper family, who enslaved them in Baton Rouge before fleeing the estate during the battle for New Orleans. Now, in 1866, without any options, the two continue working for the Harpers in exchange for room and board. Mr. Harper hopes to make a killing in a Mexican silver mine, and after he takes June west, Coleman follows with Mrs. Harper and her strident daughter Florence. In Mexico, June falls in love with charismatic Black Seminole Isaac, flees Mr. Harper, and finds her way to the Black community of Amity. Coleman, meanwhile, endures a shipwreck, a kidnapping, and imprisonment by a Mexican general, who then enlists him to find Mr. Harper. All the while, Coleman hopes against hope that he will find June. Much of the novel is narrated by Coleman, whose sly humor and sharp observations cut others down to size (Mrs. Harper's "exaggeratedly robust" hoop skirt makes her look "as though she were seated in an upturned soup bowl"), and the well-developed plot generates strong suspense. It's an indelible slice of postbellum border history.
