Description
Book SynopsisNew Orleans, May 1862. The largest city in the ill-starred confederacy has fallen to Union troops. Twelve-year-old Joseph Woolsack disappears from his home, putting his mother Elise into a panic and his father Angel into a rage.
Elise must struggle to maintain a hold on her sanity, her son and her station, but is threatened by the resurgence of a troubling figure from her past. Their paths all intersect with General Benjamin ''the Beast'' Butler, whose avarice and brutal acumen are ideally suited to the task of governing an ''ungovernable city''.
With the richly historical prose that marked The Blood of Heaven, Wascom carves a gothic tale of insurrection and ill-advised romance in the city at the heart of Secessia, the rebellious just-conquered South.
Trade ReviewA powerful and memorable story. * Sunday Times *
Secessia should be greeted with trumpets and fanfare. I haven't read a novel this exciting in a long, long time. -- Valerie Martin
Wascom, who was born in New Orleans, has justly been compared to Cormac McCarthy, but the spirit of his new novel is touched by the lurid energy of Anne Rice and Joyce Carol Oates and even Edgar Allen Poe. * Washington Post *
Though most of the characters are as passionate, selfish, and greedy as the city itself, Wascom makes every one of them a pleasure to read, effortlessly inhabiting each of their specific psychologies. . . . This is such a good yarn that readers will be totally on board with the whole rambunctious package. * Publishers Weekly *
