With Calvin Baker's first two novels, Naming the New World and Once Two Heroes, he has continued to be acclaimed by the major media from the Los Angeles Times to Esquire. Now, with Dominion, Baker has written a lush, incantatory novel about three generations of an African American family in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War.

Dominion tells the story of the Merian family who, at the close of the seventeenth century, settle in the wilderness of the Carolinas. Jasper is the patriarch, freed from bondage, who manages against all odds to build a thriving estate with his new wife and two sons — one enslaved, the other free. For one hundred years, the Merian family struggles against the natural (and occasionally supernatural) world, colonial politics, the injustices of slavery, the Revolutionary War and questions of fidelity and the heart. Footed in both myth and modernity, Calvin Baker crafts a rich, intricate and moving novel, with meditations on God, responsibility, and familial legacies. While masterfully incorporating elements of the world's oldest and greatest stories, the end result is a bold contemplation of the origins of America.

"Baker's ambitious but slack novel follows three generations of African-American men who make their mark in colonial and Revolutionary South Carolina, while battling nature, the supernatural and their sexual and emotional needs. Jasper Merian, a 29-year-old freed slave from Virginia with grandiose ambitions, settles in the forest beyond the town of Berkeley, S.C., where he toils to tame the wilderness. With the help of his wife, Sanne, he builds a home he calls Stonehouses, a place he hopes will be a utopia and a legacy for Sanne; their son, Purchase; and Jasper's son, Magnus, an escaped slave borne by another wife. While Magnus makes a life at Stonehouses, Purchase, a blacksmith, wanders the colonies, struggles through a fraught love affair and produces a son, Caleum, who grows up to join a Revolutionary militia out of neighborly loyalty more than political conviction. Baker (Once Two Heroes) brings authentic quotidian detail, evocation of the religious tensions of the era and a fervent sense of purpose to the novel. But his high-flown language is sometimes more inflated than eloquent, and the deliberately mystical, opaque storytelling leaches the novel's drama. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Baker...has rendered a novel that, in its beauty, deftly drawn characters, and stirring look at the complexities of American slavery and race, recalls Edward P. Jones' The Known World (2003)." Booklist (Starred Review)

"Baker once again delivers an original historical novel." Library Journal

"A choppy narrative that fails to dovetail either the family's story with the historical context or the realistic and supernatural elements." Kirkus Reviews

"The first section of the novel is engaging....Yet as the novel progresses, it falters....All of which suggests that this novel needs a sequel. Baker offers a none-too-subtle hint that one is in the wings. Let's hope he grounds it better." San Francisco Chronicle

Jasper Merian, newly freed from slavery in Virginia at the close of the 17th century, leaves for the uncharted free territory to carve out a utopia in the wilderness of the Carolinas. His family battles against the natural and occasionally supernatural world, colonial politics, the injustices of slavery, the Revolutionary War, and questions of fidelity and the heart.

Calvin Baker was born in Chicago and graduated from Amherst College. He has written one previous novel and lives in New York City.