Free Men
Katy Simpson Smith, 2016
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062407597
Summary
From the author of the highly acclaimed The Story of Land and Sea comes a captivating novel, set in the late eighteenth-century American South, that follows a singular group of companions—an escaped slave, a white orphan, and a Creek Indian—who are being tracked down for murder.
In 1788, three men converge in the southern woods of what is now Alabama.
Cat, an emotionally scarred white man from South Carolina, is on the run after abandoning his home. Bob is a talkative black man fleeing slavery on a Pensacola sugar plantation, Istillicha, edged out of his Creek town’s leadership, is bound by honor to seek retribution.
In the few days they spend together, the makeshift trio commits a shocking murder that soon has the forces of the law bearing down upon them. Sent to pick up their trail, a probing French tracker namecard Le Clerc must decide which has a greater claim: swift justice, or his own curiosity about how three such disparate, desperate men could act in unison.
Katy Simpson Smith skillfully brings into focus men whose lives are both catastrophic and full of hope—and illuminates the lives of the women they left behind.
Far from being anomalies, Cat, Bob, and Istillicha are the beating heart of the new America that Le Clerc struggles to comprehend. In these territories caught between European, American, and Native nations, a wilderness exists where four men grapple with the importance of family, the stain of guilt, and the competing forces of power, love, race, and freedom—questions that continue to haunt us today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1985-86
• Where—Jackson, Mississippi, USA
• Education—B.A., Mount Holyoke College; M.F.A. Bennington College; Ph.D., University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Currently—lives in New Orleans, Louisiana
Katy Simpson Smith was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. She attended Mount Holyoke College and received a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She has been working as an adjunct professor at Tulane University and lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Books
2013 - We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835.
2014 - The Story of Land and Sea
2016 - Free Men
(Author bio adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
With this collage of experiences twisted together and soaked in blood, Smith cuts to the bone of our national character. Then, as now, for all its violence and desperation, it’s noble and inspiring, too.
Washington Post
[A] brilliant, wild ride…. Not only does Smith step boldly into the terrain of the classics of the American canon, her novel feels like one of those classics. Smith has succeeded in writing a novel of American masculinity that deserves comparison with Cormac McCarthy, Jim Harrison and Herman Melville.
Jackson Clarion-Ledger
[G]limpses into a vanished but fully realized world, one which has completely engaged us by [the] novel’s satisfying end.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
We are lucky to be in a position to follow an amazing author at the start of her publishing career…. Smith applies her close attention to historical subjects, a feel for evocative language and the undertone of a woman’s longing and adds to that structured suspense and epic ambition.
Asheville Citizen-Times
Free Men marries exhaustive research into the time period with effortless prose and insight into her characters that makes a story from several centuries ago feel immediate.
Huffington Post
Set in 1788 and drawing from a historical incident, Smith’s searching second novel probes connection and isolation, forgiveness and guilt.... [T]his novel evokes the complexity of a fledgling America in precise, poetic language. Though likely too slow-paced for some readers, it is rich with insights about history and the human heart.
Publishers Weekly
[I]lluminating.... An uncommon story of three men on the run as well as a complex tale about freedom of the individual and justice in society. There's much to ponder after reading the last page. —Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO
Library Journal
Smith deftly evokes the swamp heat, fetid woods, and pitiless inhabitants of a barely settled region of the nascent United States.... Despite crisp, vivid prose, the exciting premise becomes bogged down by the multiple narrators, whose voices blend until they are too similar to distinguish, while their complicated back stories become too crowded.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How does the setting of the novel affect the actions of the characters? How might their stories unfold differently in another place or time?
2. Le Clerc is fascinated and confused by the bond among the three fugitives. Why do they feel connected, and why do they decide to stay together after the events at the creek?
3. For Le Clerc, "disorder was intoxicating" and "flashes of the undomesticated soothed [him]." What kind of upbringing is he reacting against, and why does he believe he'll be more fulfilled in America?
4. Bob's mother countered their captivity as slaves by telling stories "like they were rare sugar." How might such storytelling help during extreme, unjust hardship? What roles can memory and imagination play with making sense of our lives?
5. Throughout his life, Bob finds comfort in incessant talking, even when void of much truth or meaning. Why has he developed this habit? What might he mean later in his life when he says that "talking is how to cross over all the holes in the world"?
6. Beck is an enslaved woman who had "given up...having any feeling again that even tasted like love." In what ways is Bob influenced by her rejection of him? In what significant ways is his wife Winna similar or different? What lessons does he learn about the shape love takes in slavery?
7. For their daughters Delphy and Polly, Bob wants freedom while Winna wants safety. In a situation where these are mutually exclusive, which is more important? Why?
8. How is Cat's tragic upbringing similar to or different from the childhoods of Bob, Istillicha, or even Le Clerc? How do these formative years shape their sense of the world?
9. Cats gruesome experience working as a medical assistant taught him that "no man is never hurt" and to be "precious toward [his] body." How do these ideas influence his behavior and decision-making?
10. How is it that Cat is the least guilty of wrongdoing and yet believes he's the most deserving of punishment and retribution?
11. Istillicha, in his constant arranging of leaves and sticks, believes that in life "there was little to control besides debris." What might this mean? What does the idea imply about how to live one's life?
12. On the verge of his first tribal battle, Istillicha tells himself that "to bend the paths of little beings to your own vision" is the "peak of all living." To what extent is this true or not? What role has such an idea played in human history? Does Istillicha's belief change as he gains more experience?
13. Istillicha believes that power comes only from violence or money. Would the other men agree? What might be other significant sources of power?
14. How do three fugitives and even Le Clerc justify their own acts of violence and harm?
15. Many characters in the novel are literally or psychologically "orphaned." What is central to this experience? How do these feelings of isolation or abandonment affect each of the characters? Is a lack of attachment the same as freedom?
16. In what ways do the women in the book make different choices about their lives than the men do? Why might this be? What social and cultural factors in this era make women's lives even more constrained, and how do they react against this?
17. Consider the old woman who lives alone in the woods. What important qualities does she possess? How does her treatment of each of the men affect them? She refers to Bob, Cat, and Istillicha, for instance, as both "bandits" and sons, and her rings shock Le Clerc into thoughts of his mother. What do these scenes add to the narrative exploration of the nature of family, intimacy, and loneliness?
18. Le Clerc observes that "despite the rhetoric" about equality in America, there are "few encounters between rich and poor" and at meetings about liberty "slaves would circulate with glasses of wine." How did such blatant hypocrisy lay the foundation for the next few centuries of American history? Why was Le Clerc expecting to see something different in the new world?
19. In his quest for a universal connection, or "sublayer," among all people, Le Clerc considers that the fugitives' desperation has them, "like all men here...pursuing...advancement, or hope." What might this mean? If that sublayer isn't fear or grief or faith, what might it be?
20. What does freedom actually mean for each of the characters, and how does it change over the course of the novel? In what ways can freedom be burdensome or undesirable? What is the best balance between individual liberty, bonds of family or kinship, and social connection?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)