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About
The author of Save Our Souls and The Dante Club makes his eagerly awaited return to fiction with this irreverent and propulsive novel about a young writer trying to make his way through a cutthroat literary scene that turns deadly.
David Trent is an aspiring novelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, trying to navigate his ambitions in a place that has writers around every corner.
He lives in an apartment above a Very Famous Author named Silas Hale who, beneath his celebrated image, is a bombastic, vindictive monster who refuses to allow his new neighbor even to make eye contact with him.
Until young David wins a prestigious award for his new book.
Suddenly Silas is interested-if intensely spiteful.
But soon, the administrator of the award comes to David with an alarming update, forcing the writer into a desperate set of choices.
Then, fate intervenes-with shocking consequences. . . .
With the wit and psychological wisdom of The Plot and The Winner, The Award is a timely, razor-sharp, and unputdownable novel about writing groups, publishing, ambition, human foibles, and the dangerous things we will do to get ahead.
"You are a castaway on a coral atoll, and you find a Man Friday-only he turns out to be a convicted murderer-oh, what a story! Matthew Pearl tells it, this dark tale of the 1887 wreck of the Wandering Minstrel with flair and aplomb: transfixingly brilliant." - Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of Knowing What We Know, on Save Our Souls
"Save Our Souls is a story, not a study. The distinction is vital. You get to know these people and their relationships with each other. You live and die with every near-rescue that isn't. Most important, you keep turning the page." - Boston Globe on Save Our Souls
"A fascinating picture of frontier Kentucky. . . . The story of Jemima's abduction, an exciting and revealing episode in the history of America's westward expansion, deserves to be retold. To his credit, Pearl resists oversimplifying a history that has been too often presented as a frontier romance, showing us that it is as much about the women, children and Native Americans who played a part in it as the famous men who ensured it would be remembered." - New York Times Book Review on The Taking of Jemima Boone
"Not only did Matthew Pearl's clear and vivid writing immediately sweep me up in a father's fear, it pulled me into a larger and even more profound story, one that would change the course of three nations-one young, two ancient, all fighting for survival." - Candice Millard, bestselling author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, on The Taking of Jemima Boone
"It seemed Jemima Boone's fate to be taken hostage-if not by Kentucky Indians then by fiction and legend. Even a cousin had a go at her story, in verse. Sensitively and eloquently, writing his way around the silences, Matthew Pearl rescues her at last. Fearlessness seemed to run in the family; Jemima could neither read nor write, yet had an uncanny ability to communicate with her father, conspiring with him from a distance, assisting with his rescue, under gunfire, at close hand. A rousing tale of frontier daring and ingenuity, better than legend on every front."
- Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, on The Taking of Jemima Boone
David Trent is an aspiring novelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, trying to navigate his ambitions in a place that has writers around every corner.
He lives in an apartment above a Very Famous Author named Silas Hale who, beneath his celebrated image, is a bombastic, vindictive monster who refuses to allow his new neighbor even to make eye contact with him.
Until young David wins a prestigious award for his new book.
Suddenly Silas is interested-if intensely spiteful.
But soon, the administrator of the award comes to David with an alarming update, forcing the writer into a desperate set of choices.
Then, fate intervenes-with shocking consequences. . . .
With the wit and psychological wisdom of The Plot and The Winner, The Award is a timely, razor-sharp, and unputdownable novel about writing groups, publishing, ambition, human foibles, and the dangerous things we will do to get ahead.
"You are a castaway on a coral atoll, and you find a Man Friday-only he turns out to be a convicted murderer-oh, what a story! Matthew Pearl tells it, this dark tale of the 1887 wreck of the Wandering Minstrel with flair and aplomb: transfixingly brilliant." - Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of Knowing What We Know, on Save Our Souls
"Save Our Souls is a story, not a study. The distinction is vital. You get to know these people and their relationships with each other. You live and die with every near-rescue that isn't. Most important, you keep turning the page." - Boston Globe on Save Our Souls
"A fascinating picture of frontier Kentucky. . . . The story of Jemima's abduction, an exciting and revealing episode in the history of America's westward expansion, deserves to be retold. To his credit, Pearl resists oversimplifying a history that has been too often presented as a frontier romance, showing us that it is as much about the women, children and Native Americans who played a part in it as the famous men who ensured it would be remembered." - New York Times Book Review on The Taking of Jemima Boone
"Not only did Matthew Pearl's clear and vivid writing immediately sweep me up in a father's fear, it pulled me into a larger and even more profound story, one that would change the course of three nations-one young, two ancient, all fighting for survival." - Candice Millard, bestselling author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, on The Taking of Jemima Boone
"It seemed Jemima Boone's fate to be taken hostage-if not by Kentucky Indians then by fiction and legend. Even a cousin had a go at her story, in verse. Sensitively and eloquently, writing his way around the silences, Matthew Pearl rescues her at last. Fearlessness seemed to run in the family; Jemima could neither read nor write, yet had an uncanny ability to communicate with her father, conspiring with him from a distance, assisting with his rescue, under gunfire, at close hand. A rousing tale of frontier daring and ingenuity, better than legend on every front."
- Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, on The Taking of Jemima Boone