LIGHTNING TIME

Theodore Worth first encounters John Brown, the charismatic leader who will change his life, when his family reluctantly agrees to hide the man in their Boston home overnight. Driven by strong beliefs and the unjust death of a black acquaintance at the hands of slave catchers, Theodore later runs away from home to help Brown in his ill-fated attack on Harper's Ferry. Theodore's role is that of survivor, the one who tells the tale. And like other chroniclers of tragedy—Ishmael or Tom of Warwick- -he is confronted by and makes use of passion and poetry to discharge his duty. Rees lights his story with flashes of lyricism that make plain the moral ambiguities of Brown's case: Did he intend all along to become the martyr whose death would light the fuse of the Civil War? Were his actions justified by the evil he fought? In much of historical fiction, the answers have to be fabricated; here, Rees trusts readers to ponder the excitement of the questions themselves. (Fiction. 10-14)