Based on historical events, Oblivion's Altar is the newest novel from the acclaimed author of The Empty Quarter and Not Between Brothers.
When the white man arrived, it was the visionary leadership of the great Cherokee chieftain known as The Ridge that led his nation into the future-with a culture at once unique and adaptable to the Americans. But as the white tide continued to flood the plains, The Ridge's judgment would be questioned, tested, and ultimately flung aside in favor of war-and his contribution to the survival of the Cherokee Nation forgotten on the infamous Trail of Tears. Until now.
All men were not always created equal in the eyes of the federal government, and the Cherokee fared particularly badly in the 19th century. In his passionate third novel, Spur Award-finalist Wilkinson (Empty Quarter; Not Between Brothers) spans six decades-from 1776 to 1839-in addrressing the plight of Ridge, a great Cherokee chieftain. Ridge was originally called Kah-nung-da-tla-geh, the Man Who Walks the Mountaintops. He was born in Georgia, where the Cherokee were known as the Civilized Tribes because they adapted easily to the white man's customs of dress, language and farming, with a parallel government and their own constitution. Ridge, a warrior and chief, is also a rich Cherokee farmer who believes in the strength of the treaties and the words of Pres. Andrew Jackson. What he does not understand is that the treaties are merely paper and that Jackson will not raise a finger to help the Indians in a vicious land dispute with the states. Ridge encourages education as a means to beat the whites at their own game. His son becomes a lawyer and represents the Cherokees in court. Even when the Cherokees win the court cases, however, the government ignores the law and the Cherokees are driven from their lands by force, following the Trail of Tears westward. Ridge is a tragic hero, a good man who did everything he could to protect his people, but who is ultimately betrayed by both the whites and his Indian brothers. Solidly based on historical fact, Wilkinson's tale packs a strong emotional punch and cannot help but make readers wonder which side was the most civilized after all. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
...an entertaining, imaginative, and historically informed story about the ruthless displacement of the Cherokee Nation from its Georgia homeland. -- Austin Chronicle
David Marion Wilkinson is a fifth-generation native of Arkansas, born in Malvern, Hot Springs County, to a Presbyterian minister and his wife in 1957. His struggling family relocated to Houston, where he attended Sharpstown High School and worked every afternoon and weekends for an aging, charismatic, alcoholic, and world-weary golf pro and raconteur who told him wonderful stories of life in East Texas, serving as a bomber pilot during WWII, and his experiences on the professional tour in the era stretching from Byron Nelson to Ben Hogan and Harvey Pennick. David was also mentored by two of his high school English teachers, Margaret Stork and Freda Katz--both of whom encouraged him to write.
Within days of his 18th birthday, David began classes at the University of Texas at Austin, roughnecking offshore in Texas and Louisiana in order to pay for his college expenses. He earned a degree in English literature (BA, 1980) with a creative writing concentration, which first introduced him to classic and modern fiction. His undergraduate years also placed him in close proximity to working writers like Michael Mewshaw, David Ohle, Laura Furman, Zulikar Ghose, and Don Graham, among others. 1970s Austin was also home to many of the best Texas writers of the time--like Jan Reid, Edwin "Bud" Shrake, Stephen Harrigan, Gary Cartwright, Shelby Hearon, Billy Lee Brammer, and the ghost of J. Frank Dobie to name only a few. All of these energies combined to attract David's attention, fan the flames of his own ambition, and focus his mind and spirit on the goal of becoming a novelist. By graduation, he knew he wanted to be a writer.
After college graduation, David accepted an assignment in the oil fields of the North Sea and Saudi Arabia--work that took him to remote and hostile locations throughout the world. Those experiences helped to mature him, but, he later said, also cut him off from his middle-class trajectory and prepared him for the isolation of life as a struggling novelist. While overseas, he also read voratiously for the first time in his life, both British and American and even middle-eastern writers, one book after another. This experience would later prove invaluable. As anyone familiar with Larry McMurtry's non-fiction work can attest, one must first hunger to read before they hunger to write. For too long, David had his prerequisites upside down--and the countless idle hours of offshore drilling and long, lonely commutes on boats, trains, and airplanes to Godforsaken places, many not unlike his grandparent's farm in Arkansas, corrected this deficiency.
At the age of 25, David began to write seriously if not professionally. He returned from Saudi Arabia to Austin at age 27, where he married a ballet dancer turned lawyer, and continued to write in conjuction with working a wide variety of horrendous occupations.
Over the next twelve years David wrote four failed novels, racking up well over 300 publisher and literary agent rejections which papered the walls of his garage office and much of the house next door (absent owners), finally publishing his fifth, NOT BETWEEN BROTHERS, in 1996. BROTHERS received award-distinction, was optioned to NBC Studios/Tig Productions for a television mini-series (three years in development before the project was abandoned), and sold 100,000 copies. The 15th Annivesary edition of the book will be released in Spring 2010. The REVIEW OF TEXAS BOOKS said NOT BETWEEN BROTHERS was "simply the best historical novel published about Texas in over a decade."
David went on to publish THE EMPTY QUARTER (contemporary mainstream, 1998), OBLIVION'S ALTAR (historical, 2002), ONE RANGER (with H. Joaquin Jackson, biography/memoir, 2005). He is currently at work on an historical novel, based on true events, set in 1950s West Texas.
David's work has earned two Spur Awards (and been a finalist for that award twice more), the Violet Crown Award (by Barnes & Nobel and the Writers League of Texas), and was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award (which says something about any Texas writer). Three of his four books are either now or have been optioned for feature films or television mini-series. Long interested in film, the author adapted THE EMPTY QUARTER for the screen with actor/producer Todd Allen (and screenwriter Bonnie Orr), and co-wrote the script adapted from OBLIVON'S ALTAR (also with Bonnie Orr). Emmy-award-winning screenwriter turned novelist Alan Brennert (www.alanbrennert.com) adapted NOT BETWEEN BROTHERS for NBC, with David modestly consulting.
David is proud of his two sons, Bratton Dean Wilkinson, now a twenty-year-old sophomore (film school) at the University of Texas; and William Tate Wilkinson, a junior basketball player and One-Act performer at Alpine High in the Big Bend of Texas. After living in Alpine and Dallas for five years, David recently returned home to Austin, where he married and settled back down to write. He lives quietly with his writer wife, Martha Strain, a native of San Angelo, Texas, who also attended the University of Texas and graduated with an English degree. Martha's been a successful home builder and is still active in interior decorating, with a passion for fine art and great books, as well as a high tolerance of high-maintenance people. Makes it all work.
For more information about David or his body of work, please access his website: www.david-marion-wilkinson.com.
This review is from: Oblivion's Altar:: A Novel of Courage (Paperback)
I own and have read all of DMW's books. They just keep getting better--or else I just appreciate them more the more I read them. To me the author has the gift of empathy. Whether he sees the world through the eyes of an oil field worker imported from India, a Mexican at war with Texas, an Indian chief, the President of the United States or anyone of the other main or supporting characters who people his tales, I always get the feeling that it is the character speaking and not the author through the character. Big difference. Normally, as I read I go behind the character and see the author busily typing away replete with his/her biases. Not so with the books of David Marion Wilkinson. I get to see several sides of an issue, and I can honestly say that even the meanest character that he dreams up has a human side which does not allow me to dismiss him/her out of hand. In Oblivion's Altar, I see and understand President Jackson's position as well as that of the several chiefs who attempt to get the U.S. government to abide by law--peacefully and with war. It was so unavoidably sad--and just plain unavoidable--what happened to the Cherokee and the other tribes of Native Americans. When you read any of DMW's stories you get [taken] into the complexities of the human spirit and you rejoice, pity, get angry at and grieve with every character at some point or other. It's great to know the author is a young man with several great books in him--and I plan to read every one.
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This review is from: Oblivion's Altar:: A Novel of Courage (Paperback)
This is historical fiction at its best, educating while entertaining. "Oblivion's Altar" is set in the early to mid 1800's and focuses on the great Cherokee chieftain whose anglocized name as Ridge. Like many Native American of his time he straddled the worlds and cultures of his ancestors and the burgeoning white world. It was inevitably a no-win situation but the courage and wisdom of Ridge (symbolic of many other Natives) are inspirational.
Wilkinson's accomplishments are the blending of historical research with his own fertile imagination.
Historical events are thus rendered in an excellent narrative rather than as dry scholarship. Characters are fused with realism, rather than seeming contrivances.
History is often the story of how ordinary people deal with extraordinary circumstances. "Oblivion's Altar" is an excellent example of this.
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This review is from: Oblivion's Altar:: A Novel of Courage (Paperback)
These historical figures will haunt your memory for weeks after you have finished this book. David Wilkinson's abilities to craft a "soul" from words is unsurpassed by todays authors. In Oblivion's Altar, he tells a compelling story of the Cherokee people which will have even the toughest skinned reader hooked by the end of their first hour of reading. Once you've read this book, you will look at all History with a more critical and decerning eye. The virtues and vices of human nature are excellently displayed, and their resulting conflict, as one nation is born and another begins to die.
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