The Prudent Mariner: A Novel - Softcover

Williams, Leslie Walker

4.31

29 ratings by Goodreads

9781572336667: The Prudent Mariner: A Novel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1572336668 ISBN 13: 9781572336667

Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press, 2008

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“The land, the heat, the South's societal complexities (and perplexities) are all here. Utterly involving, wise and perceptive, this is a novel to remember. If you liked To Kill a Mockingbird, you will love The Prudent Mariner.”
-Kelly Cherry, judge of the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel

In 1913, a young white girl in coastal Georgia fabricates a romance between her elder sister and an African American laborer, inadvertently leading to the man's lynching. A crowd gathers and a photographer records the event on picture postcards. In one of these, the young girl stands smiling beside the hung man.

More than fifty years later, nine-year-old Riddley Cross discovers these postcards amid her late grandfather's belongings. As she tries to make sense of why the postcards are in her family's possession, and why the photographed girl seems so familiar, Riddley becomes haunted by apparitions and dreams of lynchings. The postcards force her to question what she has been taught about the world, the South, and her family-and what she has not.

The mysteries of the lynching postcards start to unravel after her widowed grandmother, Adele, moves in with the family. Afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, Adele speaks only to murmur the occasional insult or curse. Nonetheless, she and Riddley become companions of a sort, based largely on their common affinity for silence, wandering, and the nearby river. When Riddley develops a friendship with her neighbor Carver, an artist and iconoclast, the connections between the postcards and Riddley's family gradually come to light, and a series of tragic events begins to unfold. In The Prudent Mariner, Williams offers a searing exploration of the legacies of complicity and violence, silence and regret, and the unforeseeable ways the past shapes and impinges upon the present.

Leslie Walker Williams was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, and currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her short stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, The Madison Review, Harvard Review, and American Fiction. The Prudent Mariner, her first novel, was awarded the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel, and the Morris Hackney Literary Award for the Novel.

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About the Author:

Leslie Walker Williams lives in Vancouver, British Columbia and was raised in Savannah, Georgia. Her short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including The Iowa Review, The Madison Review, Harvard Review, and American Fiction. The Prudent Mariner received the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel and the Morris Hackney Literary Award.

Review:

“Utterly involving, wise and perceptive, this is a novel to remember. If you liked To Kill a Mockingbird, you will love The Prudent Mariner.” —Kelly Cherry, judge of the 2007 Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel

“In Williams’ skillful hands, the past really isn’t even past yet; it’s always with her characters, shaping every aspect of their lives. Few writers combine her feel for place with her grasp of history's personal reverberations.” — Andrea Barrett

“A sparkling debut.” —Margot Livesey

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