About the Book
One hero will risk it all to save the world . . . and the woman he loves. In late World War I France, disillusioned American soldier and musician Sgt. David Pierce fights the German enemy and tours the French countryside with the famed Harlem Hellfighters Band. These "Men of Bronze" ae not only brave soldiers, but talented musicians who are conquering Europe with a secret weapon-Jazz.
In a cruel irony, David and his fellow soldiers are forbidden to serve in the war as Americans; instead, they fight for a grateful French army. As he battles in the trenches and with the relentless color line, David also has an unfinished war raging back home in the U.S. Facing an uncertain-yet certainly unhappy-future, he meets a woman who will change his life forever. However, her secrets challenge everything David believes about love, duty and sacrifice.
How far will he go to win on all fronts?
About the Author :
Heather Buchanan is an award-winning publisher and film producer. She was the 2017 Paul Charosh Fellow for the Society for American Music, for which she conducted research for the novel Victors. She is also a musician and composer.
Review :
"Using letters, journal entries, and other non-traditional literary devices, Heather Buchanan's Victors is an anthropological dig of a tale that invokes Alice Walker, Kamau Brathwaite and John A Williams. It tells a tale that is heroic and magical. A love story, a war story, a story of persistence and grace, Victors takes readers back in time to the First World War and the famous all-black Harlem Hellfighters band and infantry in meticulous detail. It is a story steeped in African-American culture and history that never ceases to amaze with its ability to be both inspiring and uplifting." -Brian Gilmore, poet, columnist and author of come see about me, marvin and We Didn't Know Any Gangsters
"Heather Buchanan collaborates her fiction about World War I with jazz musicians for a centennial tribute to James Reese Europe and the Harlem Hellfighters Regimental Band. This book is like a documentary film and she is a magical storyteller using letters, telegrams, notes, articles, and pieces of characters' personal stories in a cohesive tale."-Naoko Fujimoto, Founder, @Well.Fed.Artist, Chicago
"Finally, the complete story of James Reese Europe's musical legacy."-T.J. Anderson, PhD, Composer, American Academy of Arts & Letters Member, and Guggenheim Fellow
"This is exactly the type of work that I feel is vital to African American letters-the literary imagining of unspoken history about black lives that mattered but have not been visualized. But the thing that makes it important, the element that really makes it work, is the art in the text that moves beyond history. This is a 21st century Cane." -Reginald Flood, Professor of African American Literature, NEA Creative Writing Fellow, and author of COFFLE
"In the spirit of Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues, Heather Buchanan debuts a sensational imagining of the African American 369th Infantry during World War I. Victors explores the complicated contrasts and marriage of music, war, and love. Buchanan effectively imparts this connection through clever characterization. These characters don't tell us who they are; rather, through bombs, cymbals, and unrelenting desire we come to know them. Incorporating the epistolary, the reader is allowed complete access to the interior of these soldiers and the people who love them. There is no pride here, and the stakes are always looming. "We musicians kill, then we heal, I guess," writes our protagonist, David Pierce. Buchanan creatively interweaves prose, historical documents, and poetry to build a robust narrative. I found myself thrust into 1918 Paris, France, unable to put this book down until all of the smoke and band and love songs momentarily fell hushed." --Dr. Derrick Harriell, author of ROPES
"Victors illuminates new threads in the rich World War I tapestry. This epistolary novel between comrades, lovers, families and musicians entwines the reader while bringing much-needed attention to the deep sacrifices made by our country's African American servicemen. Buchanan's narrative bleeds with the discrimination of the ranks, the adulation abroad and painful reconciliations of these realities. It is a humanizing and devastating story that should resonate with us all." -Vincent M. Livoti, Ph.D., Palmer School of Library & Information Science, Long Island University
