Free Men, Katy Simpson Smith
Free Men, Katy Simpson Smith
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Free Men
A Novel

Author: Katy Simpson Smith

Narrator: Michael Curran-Dorsano, William Duffy, William Harper, Paula J. Parker, Alec Tomkiw

Unabridged: 11 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/16/2016


Synopsis

From the author of the highly acclaimed The Story of Land and Sea comes a captivating novel, set in the late eighteenth-century American South, that follows a singular group of companions—an escaped slave, a white orphan, and a Creek Indian—who are being tracked down for murder.In 1788, three men converge in the southern woods of what is now Alabama. Cat, an emotionally scarred white man from South Carolina, is on the run after abandoning his home. Bob is a talkative black man fleeing slavery on a Pensacola sugar plantation, Istillicha, edged out of his Creek town’s leadership, is bound by honor to seek retribution.In the few days they spend together, the makeshift trio commits a shocking murder that soon has the forces of the law bearing down upon them. Sent to pick up their trail, a probing French tracker named Le Clerc must decide which has a greater claim: swift justice, or his own curiosity about how three such disparate, desperate men could act in unison.Katy Simpson Smith skillfully brings into focus men whose lives are both catastrophic and full of hope—and illuminates the lives of the women they left behind. Far from being anomalies, Cat, Bob, and Istillicha are the beating heart of the new America that Le Clerc struggles to comprehend. In these territories caught between European, American, and Native nations, a wilderness exists where four men grapple with the importance of family, the stain of guilt, and the competing forces of power, love, race, and freedom—questions that continue to haunt us today.

About Katy Simpson Smith

Katy Simpson Smith is the author of a study of early American motherhood, We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835, and a novel, The Story of Land and Sea. She lives in New Orleans.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Melissa on April 20, 2020

Katy Simpson Smith, once again, beautifully weaves nature alongside the lives of her characters in her second novel – this one based on actual figures in history – about a disparate group: runaway slave, white man, Creek Indian (and, to a lesser degree, a Frenchman tracking the trio). The novel intro......more

Goodreads review by Beverly on November 12, 2015

This was a 3.5 read for me I had mixed reactions to this compelling compassionately told story of four men from disparate backgrounds grappling for answers and their place in the late eighteenth century American South. The action of the book takes place over a couple of weeks in 1788 in what is now A......more

Goodreads review by Heather on February 29, 2016

. This book put me to sleep a couple of times, but in a good way. I'd stay up late reading it and the lyrical way Smith writes, especially about nature, would lull me to sleep. I could hear the creek and taste the clean water, hear the woodland creatures and smell the dirt. And then she builds up th......more

Goodreads review by Ann Marie (Lit·Wit·Wine·Dine) on January 10, 2016

Though Free Men is the story of a slave, an orphan, and Creek Indian, it is not so much a story about being a slave, orphan, or Indian. At its essence, it's really a very poignant story of relationships, injustice, loyalty, and how we perceive ourselves. It's 1788 and the unlikely trio of Bob (escap......more

Goodreads review by Washington on February 17, 2016

Smith’s strange, ruminative story develops with a cycle of monologues - a demanding narrative strategy that she deploys somewhat unevenly. With this collage of experiences twisted together and soaked in blood, Smith cuts to the bone of our national character. Then, as now, for all its violence and d......more