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James McBride : The Good Lord Bird

Riverhead Books, New York, 2013

ISBN 1594486344

8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. E2 - A 5th printing hardcover book SIGNED by James McBride on the title page in very good condition in very good dust jacket that is mylar protected. Dust jacket has label on the front with wrinkling on some edge, some wrinkling and chipping on some edges and corners, and light shelf wear. Book lightly cocked, some bumped corners, wrinkling on the spine edges, and light shelf wear. From the bestselling author of The Color of Water and Song Yet Sung comes the tragically funny satire of a young boy who joins John Brown's antislavery crusade - and who must pass as a girl to survive. Henry Shackleford is a slave boy in Kansas Territory in 1856, when the region is a battleground between anti- and pro-slavery forces. When the legendary abolitionist John Brown arrives in the area, an argument between Brown and Henry's master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave town - with Brown, who believes he's a girl. As he adjusts to his new life, Henry - whom the eccentric Brown nicknames "Onion" and sees as his good-luck charm - conceals his true identity to stay alive. Little Onion is forced to rely on his ingenuity to survive escalating violence between Brown with his ragtag army and the slaveholders, who are not always the devils they seem to be. He strikes out on his own, but not for long, as Brown returns and sweeps Onion into his historic, tragic raid on Harpers Ferry, which will be one of the great catalysts for the Civil War. A riveting story recounted in the voice of an old man looking back on his childhood, The Good Lord Bird will make you laugh and think. It's rousing adventure, told with McBride's meticulous eye for character and detail. It's also a moving exploration of one of the most colorful and forgotten characters in American history. 9.5"x6.5", 417 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. James McBride is an American writer and musician. He is the recipient of the 2013 National Book Award for fiction for his novel The Good Lord Bird. McBride is well known for his 1995 memoir, the bestselling book The Color of Water, which describes his life growing up in a large, poor American-African family led by his white Jewish mother. She was strict and the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi. During her first marriage, to Rev. Andrew McBride, she converted to Christianity and became a devout Christian. The memoir, which won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, spent over two years on The New York Times bestseller list, and has become an American classic. It is read in high schools and universities across America, has been translated into 16 languages, and sold more than 2.5 million copies. In 2002, McBride published a novel, Miracle at St. Anna, drawing on the history of the overwhelmingly African-American 92nd Infantry Division in the Italian campaign from mid-1944 to April 1945. The book was adapted into the 2008 movie Miracle at St. Anna, directed by Spike Lee. In 2005, McBride published the first volume The Process, a CD-based documentary about life as lived by low-profile jazz musicians. His 2008 novel Song Yet Sung is about an enslaved woman who has dreams about the future, and a wide array of freed black people, enslaved people, and whites whose lives come together in the odyssey surrounding the last weeks of this woman's life. Harriet Tubman served as an inspiration for the book, which gives a fictional depiction of a code of communication that enslaved people used to help runaways attain freedom. The book, based on real events that occurred on Maryland's Eastern Shore, also featured the notorious criminal Patty Cannon as a villain. In 2012, McBride co-wrote and co-produced Red Hook Summer (2012) with Spike Lee. In July 2013, McBride co-authored Hard Listening (2013) with the rest of the Rock Bottom Remainders (published by Coliloquy). In August 2013, his The Good Lord Bird, a comedy novel, was released by Riverhead Books. The work details the life of notorious abolitionist John Brown. It won the 2013 National Book Award for fiction. On September 22, 2016, President Barack Obama awarded McBride the 2015 National Humanities Medal "for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America. Through writings about his own uniquely American story, and his works of fiction informed by our shared history, his moving stories of love display the character of the American family." In December 2020, Emily Temple of Literary Hub reported that his novel Deacon King Kong had made 16 lists of the best books of 2020, while in February 2021 it won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Deacon King Kong received the 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction. McBride is the tenor saxophonist for the Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of best-selling authors who are also musicians. "Hopefully", McBride says, "the group has retired for good." He also toured as a saxophonist with jazz legend Little Jimmy Scott and has his own band that plays an eclectic blend of music. He has written songs for Anita Baker, Grover Washington Jr., Pura Fé, and Gary Burton. McBride composed the theme music for the Clint Harding Network, Jonathan Demme's New Orleans documentary Right to Return, and Ed Shockley's off-Broadway musical Bobos . McBride was awarded the American Music Theater Festival's Stephen Sondheim Award in 1993, the American Arts and Letters Richard Rodgers Award in 1996, and the inaugural ASCAP Richard Rodgers Horizons Award in 1996.. Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Hardcover. Jacket: Very Good

5th Printing
Signed by Author

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