Even As We Breathe: A Novel

Even As We Breathe: A Novel

by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
Even As We Breathe: A Novel

Even As We Breathe: A Novel

by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

Hardcover

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Overview

Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. The experience introduces him to the beautiful and enigmatic Essie Stamper—a young Cherokee woman who is also working at the inn and dreaming of a better life.

With World War II raging in Europe, the resort is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. A secret room becomes a place where Cowney and Essie can escape the white world of the inn and imagine their futures free of the shadows of their families' pasts. Outside of this refuge, however, racism and prejudice are never far behind, and when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing, Cowney finds himself accused of abduction and murder.

Even As We Breathe invokes the elements of bone, blood, and flesh as Cowney navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divides. Betrayed by the friends he trusted, he begins to unearth deeper mysteries as he works to prove his innocence and clear his name. This richly written debut novel explores the immutable nature of the human spirit and the idea that physical existence, with all its strife and injustice, will not be humanity's lasting legacy.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781950564064
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Publication date: 09/08/2020
Pages: 240
Sales rank: 921,144
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), holds degrees from Yale University and the College of William and Mary. Her work Going to Water won the Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium and was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. She is coeditor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies and serves on the board of trustees for the North Carolina Writers' Network. She resides in Qualla, North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Bones
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Stains
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Acknowledgements

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

" Even As We Breathe is a remarkable and important debut novel that announces a major new voice in southern literature, and one that we have waited far too long to hear. Clapsaddle offers us characters we will never forget, a palpable sense of place, and an intricate plot, but most of all she allows us to luxuriate in her rich language, which is evident from the first sentence to the last. It was not only a pleasure to read this book, it was also an honor. Don't miss it." — Silas House, author of Southernmost


" Even As We Breathe is a fresh, welcome, and much needed addition to the fiction of the Appalachian South and its neglected people and places. Clapsaddle creates characters with sensitivity, subtlety, humor, and warmth. A splendid debut by a writer well worth following." — Charles Frazier, New York Times bestselling author of Varina and Cold Mountain


"A period piece that illuminates and echoes our current time. A powerful story told by voices that ring true as scripture. Even As We Breathe is an awakening. This is a masterful debut from the writer we need right now." — David Joy, author of When These Mountains Burn


"Debut writer Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle lifts the curtain to show us a South we don't know, revealed through the struggles of Cowney Sequoyah, a young man growing up within the Cherokee Nation of far Western North Carolina, and yet another surprise setting when he takes a job at Asheville's fabled Grove Park Inn while it is being used by the US military as a place of internment for Axis prisoners of war during World War II. Even As We Breathe is a wonderful novel, complicated as life itself — thrilling, mysterious, and finally, a revelation!" — Lee Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Marlin

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