First published 1999
Owen Brown sits as an old man, the last living son of John Brown, ready to tell the truth about his notorious father. He remembers their family life torn between domestic routines and his father's growing obsession with ending slavery. Owen watched as John Brown transformed from a struggling businessman into America's most feared abolitionist, leading violent raids across Kansas and beyond. The family followed him deeper into danger, witnessing battles that would push the nation toward civil war. Owen recalls intimate moments around the dinner table alongside scenes of bloodshed, romantic entanglements alongside political fury. He must reconcile his love for his father with the violence that defined their lives. Through Owen's eyes, we see how one family's devotion became entangled with a nation's moral crisis, leading inevitably toward the raid on Harpers Ferry that would make John Brown a martyr and leave his son grappling with a complex legacy of love, loss, and the terrible cost of righteousness.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, unreliable-narrator
Setting: America, Kansas, Harpers Ferry
Period: 19th Century
758 pages · Paperback · Ecco
Content warnings: violence