Canaan's Tongue [Paperback]

John Wray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 8, 2006

Set in the American South in the years before and during the Civil War, John Wray’s hypnotic new novel is at once a crime story, a bravura work of historical fiction, and a fire-and-brimstone meditation on American credulity and corruption.
Thaddeus Morelle’s followers call him “the Redeemer.” Over the years he has led the Island 37 Gang from stealing horses to stealing slaves in an enterprise so nefarious that both the Union and Confederacy have placed a bounty on their heads. But now Morelle is dead, murdered by his puppet and prot?g?, Virgil Ball, who may rid himself of the Redeemer but can never be free of his Trade. Based on the true story of John Murrell, a figure once as infamous as Jesse James, Canaan’s Tongue is suspenseful and fiercely comic, a modern masterpiece of the American grotesque.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This much-anticipated second fiction from Wray (The Right Hand of Sleep, 2001) is more an evil take on Tristram Shandy or Mason & Dixon than on Right Hand precursors Graham Greene or Joseph Roth. Genuine and imagined quotes from Mark Twain, narrative passages by assorted quixotic characters (including the occasional declaration from God), diary entries, letters, criminal inquisitions, etc., are brilliantly used by Wray to describe, and partially veil, the real-life atrocities of the infamous mid–19th-century preacher, horse thief and murderous schemer John Murrell, called the "Redeemer" by Twain in Life on the Mississippi. Set in 1863 and narrated chiefly by Virgil Ball, the right-hand man and eventual assassin of Thaddeus Morelle (Wray's fictional "Redeemer"), the novel details the final days of a curious handful of holdout cutthroats from Morelle's once much-larger band at Geburah Plantation, La., on the banks of the "Big Muddy." As the novel opens, one of the group has been found murdered, and the resulting inquiry unfolds by fits and starts amid an untidy sequence of flashbacks. The dark side of American history has always been best treated by the novel, and Wray does justice to some incredibly rich and challenging material, forging a style that is as loose and wild as its subjects. Steeped in effective 19th-century archaism, yet steely in sustaining the story, the prose is as poetic as it is violent.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

From the prizewinning author of The Right Hand of Sleep (2001) comes a darkly allegorical novel set on the eve of the Civil War. John Murrell, the Redeemer, a historical figure mentioned in Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, is a charismatic land pirate posing as an itinerant preacher. With a bizarre gang of accomplices, he resells stolen slaves. What began as the "Trade" becomes much more degenerate. Murrell divines the weakness of each of his gang members and uses it to control and corrupt them, even from the grave. As war breaks out, the gang is hunted by both the Union and Confederate armies and holes up on crumbling Geburah Plantation on the banks of the Mississippi. One by one, the members of the Trade begin to die in strange ways while waiting for the Redeemer to return. Wray tells a powerfully dark story that incorporates Southern culture and the wisdom of the kabbalah with just a touch of the occult. Elizabeth Dickie
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (August 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400033810
• ISBN-13: 978-1400033812
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,125,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars canaan's tongue, July 24, 2005

By 

tikcuf "tikcuf" (boise, idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Canaan's Tongue (Hardcover)

reviews of this book in the NY Times and other periodicals may give one the impression that this is an historical novel about the slave trade on the mississippi river, circa civil war. the primary focus of this book , however, is on the often violent relationships among the sociopathic members of the slave trading gang portrayed in the book. furthermore, the tone of the book is quite surrealistic and some elements of the story are bizarre and fantastical.

other reviewers have commented that this is a hard read, and it is. the prose has been aptly described as "gothic". the author, mr. wray, doesn't seem to elaborate the plot very directly, he rather refers to it an oblique sort of way. as a result, readers may be left confused and frustrated.

on the plus side, this book was obviously a labor of love. the prose is exceedingly elegant and poetic; the book seems well researched, and the author is quite clever with some of the literary devices he employs. one also does pick up some history along the way, and the book drips with the ambience of the times. Ultimately, despite it's shortcomings, i found myself drawn to this book: though frustrating, it was hard to put down.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEST BOOK I HAVE READ THIS YEAR, June 9, 2005

By 

John P. Henderson (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Canaan's Tongue (Hardcover)

The excitement I got from reading this novel reminded me of the first time I read a book by Cormac McCarthy, or Garcia Marquez, or even early Steven King. It's just unforgettable. Like the writers I've mentioned, Canaan's Tongue creates a world that looks a lot like ours, a world that convinces completely but at the same time is deeply strange and unsettling. I read in an interview that Wray wanted to write a book that commented on America today--sort of like a fairy-tale, but also like a political cartoon--and maybe that explains the bizarreness of some parts of the narrative. Except this book is way too creepy to be a political cartoon. I read it in about two days, and I really felt somehow altered when I finished the last page. Unbelievably powerful writing!

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Canaan's Tongue, September 15, 2005

By 

K. Freeman (Apple Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Canaan's Tongue (Hardcover)

Literary historical fiction, ostensibly about slave-stealers during the Civil War.

But really about belief and its pitfalls, mysticism that cannot entirely be explained away, and the choice that America during the Civil War was on the verge of making.

Canaan's Tongue features one appealing character and others who are fascinating (like snakes). At times it's darkly humorous and at other times beautiful or grotesque. As historical fiction, it succeeds in taking no account at all of modern beliefs or politics (thankfully). At the same time, it can be interpreted as an indictment of the "modern civilization" that was to come -- where everything becomes the Trade.

I think this is a great novel that has somehow slipped into the world without much fanfare. I highly recommend it.