The Colour of Lightning
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Price:
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$22.95
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On Sale:
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23/03/2009
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Formats:
Trade PB
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At the end of the Civil
War, Britt Johnson, a freed black man, travels with his family from Kentucky to
start a new life in Texas. But this wild country holds dangers of its own. When
his wife and children are captured during an Indian raid, Britt vows to bring
them home or die trying. But his determination and courage quickly land him in
the thick of a battle he wants no part of—the struggle between the U.S.
government and the Kiowa and Comanche tribes, whose land, freedom and culture
are threatened.
Paulette Jiles, winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award, the Governor
General’s Award and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, returns with a
story that is grounded in history but that echoes the classic myths. Powerful
and nuanced, by turns as beautiful and unforgiving as the frontier itself,
The Colour of Lightning is an ambitious and striking novel that confirms
Jiles as one of Canada’s finest writers.
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Author Extras
Reading Guides:
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Critical Praise for
The Colour of Lightning
“Jiles evokes the past here, but there is no sepia tinge to her fiction. It
is as alive and immediate as the red dust that seeps into every crack and
crevice.”
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The Globe and Mail on Stormy Weather
“Clear, spiky and flavoured by humour. . . . This is a story of courage and
hope and that quality rarely evoked in contemporary fiction—sheer gallantry.”
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Toronto Star on Stormy Weather
"A rousing, character-driven tale.”
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Kirkus Reviews
"A rousing, character-driven tale."
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Kirkus Reviews on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING
"Stick a thumb into any page of Paulette Jiles’s The Color of Lightning and you’ll pull out a fine prose plum."
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Texas Monthly on THE COLOR OF LIGHTNING
"Jiles never reduces her cast of characters to stock stereotypes, tackling a traumatic and tragic episode in American history with sensitivity and assurance."
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Booklist
"Jiles is an ardent student of history, and through extensive research is able to reimagine life in post-Civil War Texas and create believable, multi-layered characters with remarkable verisimilitude."
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San Antonio Express-News
"Jiles’ spare and melancholy prose is the perfect language for this tale in which survival necessitates brutality."
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Seattle Times
"[A] meticulously researched and beautifully crafted story...this is glorious work."
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Washington Post
"A gripping, deeply relevant book."
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New York Times Book Review
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The Color of Lightning
In 1863, the War Between the States creeps slowly yet inevitably toward its bloody conclusion—and eastern thoughts are already turning to different wars and enemies. Searching for a life and future, former Kentucky slave Britt Johnson is venturing west into unknown territory with his wife,...
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Stormy Weather
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Enemy Women , a spellbinding Depression-era epic of a woman caught between history and hope. Jeanine, middle sister of the three Stoddard girls, has always been her father’s favourite. Ever since she was little, she watched her family’s...
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