Based on the shocking true story: In the waning days of Indian Territory, the multi-racial, teenaged Rufus Buck Gang embarked on a vicious, childish, and deadly 13-day rampage that shocked even this lawless place. Their goal was to take back Indian lands. Based on the true story, this is a tale of how real-life figures "Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker, notorious half-black, half-Indian outlaw Cherokee Bill, one-quarter Cherokee "gentlemen bandit" Henry Starr, relative of the notorious Belle Starr, and the worst of them all, half-black, half-Indian Rufus Buck, collided during the summer of 1895. In lawless Indian Territory the end of an era approached. The U.S. government continued to co-opt Indian land for settlement. Judge Isaac C. Parker's judicial tyranny over 74,000 square miles of Indian Territory was coming to an end. Against this background, the teenaged Rufus Buck Gang embarked on their mad quest to reclaim Indian lands from US settlement. Rufus is guided by a sense of religious mission, by heavenly visions made manifest in the form of the extraordinary, 13 year-old Theodosia Swain. With his angel to guide him, he sets out to do the impossible with a missionary's zeal, a child's anticipation, and a grown man's violence. In "I Dreamt I Was in Heaven," famous, historical figures dance with fictional characters to create a turn-of-the-century tapestry of violence and innocence, love and betrayal, butchery and grace--mirroring and chafing against the backdrop of a burgeoning United States, and a disappearing American West.
I like to write about the extraordinary. I have little interest in domestic drama, in small tales of internal struggle. I want to read and write characters who are extraordinary--larger than life. I certainly don't want to read or write about people who are "just like me." I want to read and write about those infinitely grander than I will ever be, willing to risk more, grasp more, love more, hate more, whose time and place demands more than you or I can probably imagine having to give... I guess it's my Southern gothic roots.
Official bio blurb below:
Leonce Gaiter is the author of the noir thriller Bourbon Street. His nonfiction writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, LA Weekly, NY Newsday, The Washington Post, Salon, and in national syndication.
His short fiction has appeared in the literary magazine Archipelago. His thriller Bourbon Street was published by Carroll & Graf in 2005. His historical novel, "I Dreamt I Was in Heaven - The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang" is from Legba Books, September 2011. He currently lives in Northern California
Raised in New Orleans, Washington D.C., Germany, Missouri, Maryland and elsewhere, Leonce Gaiter is the quintessential army brat--rootless, restive, and disagreeable. He began writing in grade school and continued the habit through his graduation from Harvard. He moved to Los Angeles and put his disagreeability to work in the creative and business ends of the film and music industries.
