A CHILD WENT FORTH follows thirteen year old Charlie Griffin's evolvement from boyhood to manhood in the summer of 1855 as he carries money from Brooklyn to Missouri to give it to the abolitionist leaders there. All the while he is being hunted by a ferocious crew of adversaries.
It is an entirely new look at the era, at slavery, racism, political and social corruptions and the cast of people in the novel are an illustrious roll call of characters from the real to the reimagined. From Walt Whitman to P.T. Barnum, to the Brooklyn evangelist and abolitionist Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe. The infamous and ghostlike undertaker and anti-slavery insurrectionist Erastus Eels. The millionaire gunfighter and freestater Butler Philips to his dashing and Oxford educated counterpart, the assassin Dixie Jack. And then there is Annie Pie, the heroine of the story, who at thirteen is brave beyond her years, and it is left to her to save Charlie Griffin, the boy she has come to love.
About the Author :
Boston Teran became a literary sensation with his first novel God Is a Bullet. The winner of numerous national and international awards, this unique talent has not only proved to be a great novelist, but because of his unique style has been compared to painters like Picasso and Breugel, the composer Tchaikovsky and filmmakers such as John Ford, Sergio Leone and David Lean.
Review :
"This is a book not to be missed...Boston Teran writes with masterful skill, his words flowing with power and fury, his dialogue rich and painfully accurate, his tale one that describes a period...fraught with danger, horror and cruelty told with a deft and delicate hand."
- Lorenzo Carcaterra, New York Times bestselling author of Sleepers and The Wolf
"Boston Teran's A Child Went Forth is one of those rare novels that's as much of an experience as it is a story. Poignant, immersive, at times heartbreaking, always entertaining, it deserves to be discussed in the same breath as Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and seems destined to become a new American classic."
- Russell Blake, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of dozens of action/adventure and mystery novels, including Fatal Exchange, Zero Sum, and The Night of the Assassin
"A Child Went Forth is engrossing from the beginning, setting up high stakes and dire circumstances for Charlie and everyone he meets along the way. Teran's style is enthralling, showing us the world through Charlie's eyes in the colloquial, frequently humorous voice of a young boy raised by a con man... a stunningly vivid work of historical fiction that adds to an already celebrated career."
- New York Daily News
"Meticulously researched, masterfully plotted, and with a dazzling prose style that captures the time and place so perfectly you'd think it was written in mid-19th century America, A Child Went Forth is a novel to savor. Highly recommended!"
- Eric Petersen, Internet Review of Books
"Teran's storytelling gifts are amply confirmed with his realistic dialogue and colorful characters that are well-blended into the plot, all of which adds to the richness of the fiction. If we are to describe this novel as purely historical fiction, we would rob it of its uniqueness."
- Norm Goldman, Bookpleasures.com
"...an involving novel with the unique ability to entertain and educate all at once: a story of resolution, adventure, and America's emerging values as seen through the eyes and experiences of a young man coming of age along with his country. Historical novel readers will find A Child Went Forth to be astute, penetrating, and quite involving."
- Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review
"A Child Went Forth is phenomenal, well-researched, and highly recommended historical fiction."
- Historical Novel Society Review (Editor's Choice)
