(Ebook) The Sweetness Of Water by Nathan Harris ISBN 9781472274373, 1472274377

(Ebook) The Sweetness Of Water by Nathan Harris ISBN 9781472274373, 1472274377

A profound debut, "better than any debut novel has a right to be" [Richard Russo], about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance and protection will alter their lives, and his, forever.   

Landry and Prentiss are two brothers born into slavery, finally freed as the American Civil War draws to its bitter close. Cast into the world without a penny to their names, their only hope is to find work in a society that still views them with nothing but intolerance. Farmer George Walker and his wife Isabelle are reeling from a loss that has shaken them to their core. After a chance encounter, they agree to employ the brothers on their land, and slowly the tentative bonds of trust begin to blossom between the strangers.  But this sanctuary survives on a knife's edge, and it isn't long before a tragedy causes the inhabitants of the nearby town to turn their suspicion onto these new friendships, with devastating consequences.

"That this powerful book is Nathan Harris’s debut novel is remarkable; that he’s only 29 is miraculous. His prose is burnished with an antique patina that evokes the mid-19th century. And he explores this liminal moment in our history with extraordinary sensitivity to the range of responses from Black and White Americans contending with a revolutionary ideal of personhood ..."  - Ron Charles, The Washington Post