Synopses & Reviews
A saga of post-Civil War America, from the defeat of the Confederacy to the Battle of Little Bighorn.Canaan fills a vast canvas stretching north, south, and west from Appomattox. Its points of reference are Richmond in the throes of Reconstruction; the trading floors of Wall Street, where men who did not fight the war make fortunes speculating on its consequences; a Virginia plantationfamiliar to readers of the author's critically acclaimed Jacob's Ladderwhere the ruin of the South is written in wrenching detail; and the Great Plains, where the splendidly arrogant George CusterYellowhairrides to his fate against Sitting Bull's warriors.
This is the story of America over twenty years of its most turbulent history. The characters are black, white, red, ex-Union, and ex-Confederate, and the principal narrator is a Santee woman, She Goes Before, who marries an ex-slave. Through her eyes we witness the hanging of her father by whites in the mass execution of 1863, Red Cloud's banquet with President Grant, and that final confrontation on the bluffs above the Little Bighorn.
Synopsis
Spanning some twenty years of American history, from the end of the Civil War to the Battle of Little Bighorn, a fictional portrait of post-Civil War America ranges from Reconstruction-era Richmond and a struggling Virginia plantation, to the trading floors of Wall Street and the Great Plains, where an arrogant George Custer faces a fateful confrontation with Sitting Bull. By the author of Jacob's Ladder. 30,000 first printing.
About the Author
Donald McCaig, the author of Jacob's Ladder, lives in rural Virginia, where he raises sheep and trains sheepdogs.