In the Upper Country: A Novel
Winner of the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
The fates of two unforgettable women—one just beginning a journey of reckoning and self-discovery and the other completing her life's last vital act—intertwine in this sweeping, powerful novel set at the terminus of the Underground Railroad.
In the 1800s in Dunmore, a Canadian town settled by people fleeing enslavement in the American south, young Lensinda Martin works for a crusading Black journalist.
One night, a neighboring farmer summons Lensinda after a slave hunter is shot dead on his land by an old woman who recently arrived via the Underground Railroad. When the old woman refuses to flee before the authorities arrive, the farmer urges Lensinda to gather testimony from her before she can be condemned for the crime.
But the old woman doesn't want to confess. Instead she proposes a barter: a story for a story. And so begins an extraordinary exchange of tales that reveal an interwoven history of Black and Indigenous peoples in a wide swath of what is called North America.
As time runs out, Lensinda is challenged to uncover her past and face her fears in order to make good on the bargain of a story for a story. And it seems the old woman may carry a secret that could shape Lensinda's destiny.
Traveling along the path of the Underground Railroad from Virginia to Michigan, from the Indigenous nations around the Great Lakes, to the Black refugee communities of Canada, In the Upper Country weaves together unlikely stories of love, survival, and familial upheaval that map the interconnected history of the peoples of North America in an entirely new and resonant way.
The fates of two unforgettable women—one just beginning a journey of reckoning and self-discovery and the other completing her life's last vital act—intertwine in this sweeping, powerful novel set at the terminus of the Underground Railroad.
In the 1800s in Dunmore, a Canadian town settled by people fleeing enslavement in the American south, young Lensinda Martin works for a crusading Black journalist.
One night, a neighboring farmer summons Lensinda after a slave hunter is shot dead on his land by an old woman who recently arrived via the Underground Railroad. When the old woman refuses to flee before the authorities arrive, the farmer urges Lensinda to gather testimony from her before she can be condemned for the crime.
But the old woman doesn't want to confess. Instead she proposes a barter: a story for a story. And so begins an extraordinary exchange of tales that reveal an interwoven history of Black and Indigenous peoples in a wide swath of what is called North America.
As time runs out, Lensinda is challenged to uncover her past and face her fears in order to make good on the bargain of a story for a story. And it seems the old woman may carry a secret that could shape Lensinda's destiny.
Traveling along the path of the Underground Railroad from Virginia to Michigan, from the Indigenous nations around the Great Lakes, to the Black refugee communities of Canada, In the Upper Country weaves together unlikely stories of love, survival, and familial upheaval that map the interconnected history of the peoples of North America in an entirely new and resonant way.
BUY THE BOOK
These clubs recently read this book...
Community Reviews
I thoroughly enjoyed this tale. It was educational, as well as emotional. It is a bit hard to follow the back and forth and constant name changes and if I reread it, I think I would take notes on the names and what approx. age that name corresponds to.
One doesn't really enjoy a book like this, dark as it is, but one can say that it's incredibly evocative. Thomas brings to life the free black people in Canada, and their constant fear of slave catchers coming across the border. The story centers around Lensinda, a young black journalist tasked with collecting their stories, and Cash, an escaped slave who kills one of the bounty hunters sent to recapture her.
Cash won't reveal her full story unless Lensinda swaps stories of her own. As the two share stories of slave life and free life, with some mythology mixed in, Lensinda slowly learns that perhaps the answer to why Cash chose to kill the bounty hunter (and it was a choice) isn't the most important thing about Cash's life. Both tales jump around in time, and can be somewhat hard to follow as there are few textual clues to mark the shifts in time, making this a challenging book to read on an already challenging subject. For those with the foritude to track the story, though, it's a worthwhile addition to genre.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
Cash won't reveal her full story unless Lensinda swaps stories of her own. As the two share stories of slave life and free life, with some mythology mixed in, Lensinda slowly learns that perhaps the answer to why Cash chose to kill the bounty hunter (and it was a choice) isn't the most important thing about Cash's life. Both tales jump around in time, and can be somewhat hard to follow as there are few textual clues to mark the shifts in time, making this a challenging book to read on an already challenging subject. For those with the foritude to track the story, though, it's a worthwhile addition to genre.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
Woven tales, the interconnected stories of Black refugees and Indigenous nations, and how they lived and worked alongside each other in the 1800s. Soulful writing in a slow, deep cadence. There are many threads; this is not a book to put down and come back to, you will lose your way. Excellent start from a fresh voice.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.