Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Giveaway - Dawson's Fall - Roxana Robinson

Roxana Robinson's novel Dawson's Fall is fictional, but has much of the author's own history woven through it. It's a timely read - and I have a copy to give away to one lucky reader.

What's it about? From Picador Books:

"A cinematic Reconstruction-era drama of violence and fraught moral reckoning.

In Dawson’s Fall, a novel based on the lives of Roxana Robinson’s great-grandparents, we see America at its most fragile, fraught, and malleable. Set in 1889, in Charleston, South Carolina, Robinson’s tale weaves her family’s journal entries and letters with a novelist’s narrative grace, and spans the life of her tragic hero, Frank Dawson, as he attempts to navigate the country’s new political, social, and moral landscape.

Dawson, a man of fierce opinions, came to this country as a young Englishman to fight for the Confederacy in a war he understood as a conflict over states’ rights. He later became the editor of the Charleston News and Courier, finding a platform of real influence in the editorial column and emerging as a voice of the New South. With his wife and two children, he tried to lead a life that adhered to his staunch principles: equal rights, rule of law, and nonviolence, unswayed by the caprices of popular opinion. But he couldn’t control the political whims of his readers. As he wrangled diligently in his columns with questions of citizenship, equality, justice, and slavery, his newspaper rapidly lost readership, and he was plagued by financial worries. Nor could Dawson control the whims of the heart: his Swiss governess became embroiled in a tense affair with a drunkard doctor, which threatened to stain his family’s reputation. In the end, Dawson—a man in many ways representative of the country at this time—was felled by the very violence he vehemently opposed." Read an excerpt of Dawson's Fall.

"Roxana Robinson is the author of ten books: six novels, three story collections, and the biography of Georgia O'Keeffe. Four of these were New York Times Notable Books. Robinson was born in Kentucky, but grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She attended Bennington College and graduated from the University of Michigan. She worked in the art world, specializing in the field of American painting, before she began writing full-time. Her novel, Cost, was named one of the five best novels of the year by the Washington Post, and received the Fiction Award from the Maine Publishers and Writers Association. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper's, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere." You can connect with Roxana Robinson on her website and follow her on Facebook.

Enter for a chance to win a copy using the Rafflecopter form below. Open to US only. Ends Sept 19/20.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your giveaways are the best. Thanks so much!
kpbarnett1941(at)aol(dot)com

traveler said...

Thanks for this captivating feature and giveaway.

Grandma Cootie said...

This sounds really fascinating, although probably a little sad and bittersweet. Thanks for the chance to win.