Free Men

December 7, 2015
Set in 1788 and drawing from a historical incident, Smith’s searching second novel probes connection and isolation, forgiveness and guilt. In an American South where control shifts among American, European, and Native American presences, three men rob and kill a group of travelers. Joined together by chance, the men are unlikely murderers. Bob, an escaped slave from a Florida plantation, has left his family for the dream of freedom out West. Creek warrior Istillicha seeks redress for the money and power stolen from him in his village. Cat, a despairing white man, flees a lifetime of loss, including the deaths of his wife and son. Told of the three men’s crime, the Creek chief arranges for Frenchman Louis LeClerc, who has been living with his tribe, to hunt and punish the culprits (the victims were traveling under the chief’s protection). LeClerc is an anthropologist as well as a skilled tracker, burning to discover what bond could unite the disparate trio. As the paths of pursuer and prey intersect, all four men face unexpected lessons about the nature of freedom and the need to belong. Like Smith’s debut, The Story of Land and Sea, this novel evokes the complexity of a fledgling America in precise, poetic language. Though likely too slow-paced for some readers, it is rich with insights about history and the human heart.

January 1, 2016

In Smith's illuminating second novel (after The Story of Land and Sea), located in the unsettled post-Revolutionary American South, a ragtag trio is on the run. Bob tells stories to block out the sorrow of his early life as a slave. Cat is a murderer who meets Bob in a failed attempt to rob him. The unlikely pair then meets Istillicha, a Creek Indian bent on regaining his role as chief. The three kill six men for the bags of coins they carry because the money means freedom for them all. LeClerc, an educated French journalist interested in Native American culture, is hired to track them down. Over a span of ten days, each man relates his tragic past, which is undeniably woven into the history of the young country, and his hopes. Istillicha can recover his chiefdom in a country increasingly not his own. Bob can buy a farm and send for his woman, Winna. Cat can head West and escape the memories of his abusive father. LeClerc keeps copious notes for later publication to better understand how three vastly different men traveled together in such camaraderie only to have one among them pay the ultimate price. VERDICT An uncommon story of three men on the run as well as a complex tale about freedom of the individual and justice in society. There's much to ponder after reading the last page. [See Prepub Alert, 8/17/15.]--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2015
In the late-18th-century woodlands of Florida and Alabama, three fugitives relate the harsh circumstances that led to their crime. Smith (The Story of Land and Sea, 2014) deftly evokes the swamp heat, fetid woods, and pitiless inhabitants of a barely settled region of the nascent United States. European immigrants run sugar plantations with the sweat of slave labor while running rum in a precarious partnership with the native Creek Indians, and representatives from all three groups combine to tell this story. The primary narrator is Bob, a slave and a mighty talker: he talks his way out of punishment when he gets into trouble and talks himself to sleep with stories of a life of freedom. When he fails to talk his wife into fleeing with him, he escapes anyway. On the road, he encounters the near-mute Cat, who, although a white man, lacks the will to exert power over himself, let alone Bob. The two meet a young Creek named Istillicha, who's aiming for the vengeance which will liberate him from a tribal slight. When the three encounter a traveling party on the road, the result is bloody and tragic. Soon bounty hunter Le Clerc, an expatriate Frenchman who lives among the Creeks, is sent to capture them. Each of these characters (plus Bob's abandoned wife) narrates his own story; they each have a past full of hardship, loss, and betrayal. "The best of life was not what we were living," Bob tells himself, "but something already past, or up ahead." Despite crisp, vivid prose, the exciting premise becomes bogged down by the multiple narrators, whose voices blend until they are too similar to distinguish, while their complicated back stories become too crowded. For a tale about one man chasing three criminals through the wilderness, the pace is frustratingly languid. Though beautifully researched and written, this run for freedom is slowed by too many campfire stories.

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