The Newer World

Summary

From “one of the best writers in the English language” (The Washington Post), a sweeping yet intimate novel about one man’s life in the aftermath of the Civil War

“I knew as I made my way home that there was no home. All the old things…were gone forever.”

Born into bondage in Union-leaning northwest Tennessee, Tennyson Bouguereau spends his days working the tobacco fields of a small farm, avoiding any action that might drive his pro-Confederate neighbors to the kind of unprovoked violence that killed his mother. But in the wake of emancipation, when a gang of defeated rebels descend on the farm, his choice to defend it and the people within makes Tennyson a wanted man. He will not now have the chance to till the ten acres he and his sister, Rosalee, have been given as their own. Instead, he must leave the relative safety of the only home he’s known, and venture into the newer world.

Set against the rapidly shifting landscape of 19th century America, from a religious school in Nashville to army camps in New Mexico and South Dakota, and featuring beloved characters from Sebastian Barry’s award-winning novels Days Without End and A Thousand Moons, The Newer World is a lyrical, visceral novel about what it is to survive, and what might be lost along the way. Dreamlike and unforgettable, it is the work of a consummate storyteller at the height of his powers.