They are men whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent years of Reconstruction. Portraying the lives of the families who dwell in The Bottom, a poor settlement just down Red River from Colfax, Louisiana, Tademy begins her story with a heart-wrenching battle for the Colfax courthouse. Newly freed men are fighting for their liberties, hoping the federal government will come to their aid. As tensions rise, a massacre ensues, and proud families are left to deal with the wreckage and find the strength to push on. Drawn from both historic fact and the author's own family history, Tademy brings to life a historical human drama left untold — until now.

"Four generations of African-American Southerners claw their way up from the ruins of Reconstruction in this engrossing family saga by the author of the bestselling Cane River. Tademy begins with a harrowing recreation of the notorious 1873 massacre at Colfax, La., where 150 blacks, gathered in defense of local Republican officials — and their own citizenship — were killed by white supremacists. Her narrative continues into the 1930s with a fictionalized chronicle of her forebears in the Tademy and Smith clans as they struggle against poverty, buy land and pursue their dream of starting a school for African-American children, their progress challenged by floods, hunting accidents and the Ku Klux Klan. It's an unabashed story of racial uplift (sample dialogue: ' 'We getting old, and it up to us to move the race forward''), but there's plenty of drama and grit to keep it from becoming cloying. Through her characters, the author paints an indelible portrait of rural life under Jim Crow, built around backbreaking farm labor, blood ties that bind and chafe, and the omnipresent fear of a capricious white racism that can undo in a moment the work of a lifetime. Combining family anecdotes with historical research and a rich imagination, Tademy crafts another American epic. Photos." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Tademy is establishing herself as a compelling chronicler of the complex history of slavery and race in America." Booklist

"This engrossing and eyeopening emotional family saga spans several generations while bringing an African American perspective to a very painful time in U.S. history." Library Journal

"[T]he book sheds light on an overlooked event, and is rife with palpable tension." Kirkus Reviews

"Tademy...manages to straddle the line between glorifying her ancestors and humanizing them." Washington Post

"Ms. Tademy's family is a fascinating wealth of stories and largely ignored American history. It is our good fortune that she, a gifted storyteller, had the wisdom to know that these stories belong to all of us." Dallas Morning News

"Tademy has done a service to readers of all races by reopening a chapter of American history that deserves the light of day." USA Today

From the New York Times bestselling author of Cane River comes the dramatic, intertwining story of two families and their struggles during the tumultuous years that followed the Civil War.

Hailed as powerful,accomplished, and spellbinding, Lalita Tademy's first novel Cane River was a New York Times bestseller and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection. Now with her evocative, luminous style and painstaking research, she takes her family's story even further, back to a little-chronicled, deliberately-forgotten time...and the struggle of three extraordinary generations of African-American men to forge brutal injustice and shattered promise into a limitless future for their children... RED RIVERFor the newly-freed black residents of Colfax, Louisiana, the beginning of Reconstruction promised them the right to vote, own property-and at last control their own lives.Tademy saw a chance to start a school for his children and neighbors. His friend Israel Smith was determined to start a community business and gain economic freedom. But in the space of a day, marauding whites would take back Colfax in one of the deadliest cases of racial violence in the South. In the bitter aftermath, Sam and Israel's fight to recover and build their dreams will draw on the best they and their families have to give-and the worst they couldn't have foreseen. Sam's hidden resilience will make him an unexpected leader, even as it puts his conscience and life on the line. Israel finds ironic success-and the bitterest of betrayals. And their greatest challenge will be to pass on to their sons and grandsons a proud heritage never forgotten-and the strength to meet the demands of the past and future in their own unique ways. An unforgettable achievement, a history brought to vibrant life through one of the most memorable families in fiction, RED RIVER is about fathers and sons, husbands and wives-and the hopeful, heartbreaking choices we all must make to claim the legacy that is ours.

Tademy is a former vice-president of Sun Microsystems who left corporate world to immerse herself in tracing her family's history.