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Shadow Country

A New Rendering of the Watson Legend

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Shadow Country

By: Peter Matthiessen
Narrated by: Anthony Heald
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About this listen

National Book Award, Fiction, 2008

Inspired by a near-mythic event on the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the 20th century, Shadow Country re-imagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him, in a killing that obsessed his favorite son.

Shadow Country transverses strange landscapes inhabited by Americans of every provenance and color, including the black and Indian inheritors of archaic racism that "still casts its shadow over the nation."

©2008 Peter Matthiessen (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic Reviews

"[G]ripping, shocking, and brilliantly told....as powerful a reading experience as nearly any in our literature." ( New York Review of Books)
"Magnificent and capacious....the book took my sleeve and like the ancient mariner would not let go....a breathtaking saga." ( Los Angeles Times)
"[Watson] comes across as nothing short of iconic....it's difficult to find another figure in American literature so thoroughly and convincingly portrayed." ( Publishers Weekly)
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There is something about Peter Matthiessen's writing that captivates and compels me, while making me more attentive to nature. The narrator Anthony Heald gets it just right, so many voices to cover. These are southern badlands and the characters are well measured to fit. The story of the outlaw E J Watson and his family is so well told that I found it hard to put down, which is rare for me as I am often bored by fictional accounts of the past told via dialogue. Here the story is retold by different protagonists, adding layer upon layer of explanation to the mystery that unfolds, in the process telling us much about Florida and the Everglades, the worldview of the time, and the American propensity for violence that persists today. The writer's ability to get deep inside the minds of his troubled protagonists during a time of extreme racism is unsettling and I for one need to contextualise this work against Matthiessen's gentle humanity and spirituality evident in his non-fiction, for instance, The Snow Leopard and Nine-Headed Dragon River. A tour de force nonetheless.

A masterpiece without doubt

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