The Wages: Fanny Howe's 1980 Novel Republished With Powerful New Afterword

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Written by distinguished poet and novelist Fanny Howe, The Wages (Pressed Wafer; May 5, 2018; $15.00; Paperback) is the story of a boy given by his white birth family to a black woman to raise as her own child on a Missouri plantation in 1832. It is a strange, gripping tale drawn from the pages of a narrative written down and carried by the family who came after him. The boy's attempts at escape, his capture, his torture, his attachments to the land and people he lived with, and his sale back to the plantation where he first came from, give a new look into the foundations of this country.

Formerly known as The White Slave and re-released this year as The Wages, the novel's recent edition includes an Afterword written by Eden McCutcheon Tirl, Peter's Great Great Granddaughter, to bring the story full circle.

"Through a series of events that range from innocent to inhumane, my Great Great Grandfather Peter McCutcheon was taken from his biological mother Nora and given to his new mother Betty to be raised," Eden said in a recount of the novel.

"Nora is the niece of plantation owner John Howard (a particularly indecent human) and white. Betty is a grieving mother herself, a slave and black. Betty weans and adores Peter as her own, while being forced to keep the deepest of secrets from him.

Peter will grow up a slave in an African American family. He will become enveloped into that family, not just by circumstance - but by love. He will defend himself, his family and fight to the end to understand how he came to be. With rhapsodic rhythm, the story of my ancestor unfolds to show, yet again, the prices people are willing to pay in the name of greed and self-importance - and the prices paid in this country to endure, overcome and transcend."

About Fanny Howe: Fanny Howe grew up in Boston in the forties and fifties. She left home at 17 to go to Stanford University in California. She left before graduating and went to Berkeley, then New York to join the student protests. She has led a nomadic life since then, writing to make a living. Howe has published several novels, collections of essays and books of poems. She's been the recipient of many awards including the Ruth Lilly Award for Life-time Achievement, a Guggenheim, and was a finalist for the Man Booker International Book Award for fiction, and for a National Book Award for poetry. Howe has given many readings of her poetry which is being published by Graywolf Books. Early on in her career she wrote novels for young adults with the help of her three teenage children. Her five literary novels are collected in one volume called Radical Love, by Nightboat Books.

About Eden McCutcheon Tirl: Eden McCutcheon Tirl is an activist, author, editor and writer of memoir. Her chapbook kneaded was published in 2018. The Afterword for the re-release of The Wages, also published 2018. Eden has often been a contributor to FilmBook and is the Executive Editor of notablysmitten.com. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Henry and two beloved four-legged children.

SOURCE Fanny Howe- Author