Shadow Country (Hardcover)

For over 20 years, Peter Matthiessen (THE SNOW LEOPARD) toiled on his late-career masterpiece, the trilogy of novels recounting the legendary, notorious, glorious, and nasty life of Florida outlaw, murderer, and sugar cane plantation owner Edgar J. Watson. The books--KILLING MISTER WATSON, LOST MAN`S RIVER, and BONE BY BONE--serve as an epic and brilliant investigation of the lawlessness, ambition, ecological plunder, and the racial tensions of Florida`s--and American--history. But Matthiessen wasn`t done: in 2008 he published SHADOW COUNTRY, a painstakingly edited and refined version of the trilogy, now fused into a single 900 page tome. The first "book" in SHADOW COUNTRY uses a dozen narrators to relate the arc of Watson`s life, from celebrated outlaw, to loathed murderer, to his own bloody demise at the hands of a crowd. In its blend of fact, fiction, myth, and surmise, the section explores the nature of reality with the same lush multiplicity of Faulkner`s ABSALOM, ABSALOM! In the second "book," two of Watson`s sons strive to understand their father`s dark legacy. Finally, in the last "book" Watson himself addresses his own life, and many of the mysteries of his youth become revealed. A remarkable work of American fiction and the apotheosis of a lauded literary career, SHADOW COUNTRY won the National Book Award in 2008.

Author:

Matthiessen, Peter

ISBN:

9780679640196

Format:

Hardcover

Pages:

892

Publish Date:

04/08/2008

Publisher:

Modern Library

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