Canaan
A Novel
1 February 2008
Territory Rights — Worldwide including Canada, but excluding the British Commonwealth.
Description
"A bred-in-the-bones storyteller." —Geraldine Brooks
Canaan fills a vast canvas. Its points of reference are Richmond in the throes of Reconstruction; the trading floors of Wall Street; a Virginia plantation; and the Great Plains, where the splendidly arrogant George Custer—Yellowhair—rides to his fate against Sitting Bull’s warriors.
This is the story of America over twenty years of its most turbulent history. The characters are black, white, and red, ex-Union and ex-Confederate; and the principal narrator is a Santee woman She Goes Before who marries an ex-slave. Through her eyes we witness the hanging of her father by whites in the mass execution of 1863, Red Cloud’s banquet with President Grant, and that final confrontation on the bluffs above the Little Bighorn.
Reviews
"Tantalizing. A flawless orchestration…Especially masterful is the trail-driving sequence, which is a model of concision, unshowy research and the easy authority of a novelist working with material he intuitively gets." — Stephen Harrigan, Washington Post Book World
"Well-paced language and haunting imagery…[Canaan is] an affecting historical novel, recounted with compassion." — Booklist
"McCaig takes readers on a tour of war-ravaged Virginia…he weaves together dazzling strands of story. McCaig has spun pure gold." — Vick Mickunas, Dayton Daily News
"Canaan is a huge, dusty Manifest Destiny of a story that details the false starts and lost opportunities of the Reconstruction era." — Roanoke Times
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