First published 2008
Edgar Watson stands at the center of a violent legend in the remote Ten Thousand Islands of Florida's Everglades. The enigmatic planter draws suspicion from his neighbors, who whisper about the men who work his sugar cane fields and then disappear without collecting their pay. Watson moves through the swampy frontier like a man running from his past, but the isolation that once protected him begins to close in. Three different voices tell his story across the decades, each revealing new layers of the truth about what Watson has done and why the community that both feared and needed him finally turned against him. As the narrative circles back through time, the full scope of Watson's crimes and the circumstances that shaped him come into focus. The book explores how violence breeds in places where civilization barely holds, and how a single man can embody both the promise and the curse of the American frontier.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, crime, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator, violence
Setting: Everglades, Florida, Ten Thousand Islands
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
618 pages · Kindle Edition · Modern Library
Content warnings: violence