HOUSE OF THE PATRIARCH

A free man of color recently returned from a harrowing adventure risks his life to save a White woman.

Benjamin January, born a slave, educated in medicine, husband, father, and finder of missing people, doesn’t want to take on another case. He and his wife already make a living as teachers in New Orleans during the 1840s. But when Chloë and Henri Viellard introduce him to their British friends the Russells, who want him to find their missing daughter, Eve, it’s not just the money that convinces him to do it. He learns that Eve had a deep interest in the new religious groups springing up all over upstate New York. Some of them are stops on the Underground Railroad, and January fears that if a reward is offered for Eve, hundreds of escaping slaves will be caught in the net. As a Black man, January must pose as the Viellards' servant to travel to New York—even then running the risk of being picked up and sold back into slavery. A chance meeting with P.T. Barnum gives him information about the Shining Herald, a woman who talks to the dead and is associated with the Rev. Broadax, whose new community, Blessed Land, Barnum knows to be a con. While he’s looking for Eve, January is accused of murder and must hide with help from locals while struggling to unveil the horrors of the cult.

A fascinating, sadly timely tale of the hero’s struggles with his rage over the treatment of Black people.