Even though Sewing Annie Coats and her son, Gabriel, have managed to buy their freedom, their lives are still marked by constant struggle and sacrifice. Washington's Georgetown neighbourhood, where the Coatses operate a tailor's shop and laundry, is supposed to be a ''promised land' for former slaves but is effectively a frontier town, gritty and dangerous, with no laws protecting black people.
The remarkable emotional energy with which the Coatses wage their daily battles - as they negotiate with their former owner, as they assist escaped slaves en route to freedom, as they prepare for the encroaching war, and as they strive to love each other enough - is what propels STAND THE STORM and makes the novel's tragic denouement so devastating.
- ISBN10 0316007048
- ISBN13 9780316007047
- Publish Date 6 November 2008 (first published 1 January 2008)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 2 June 2017
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Little, Brown & Company
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336
- Language English