Traces decades in the lives of a post-Civil War Oklahoma family that includes such members as a psychopathic killer, a group of cruel brothers, an impassive ex-slave, a dangerous child prodigy and a pathologically deviant patriarch.
After their actions during the Civil War lead to a courtmartial, a group of hardened Union soldiers recasts themselves as outlaws, and find that the disorder of Reconstruction allows for all sort of savage freedom. The psychopathic killer Quentin Ross; the mean and moronic Empire brothers; the impassive ex-slave Fred Johnson; dangerous child prodigy Lukas Shakespeare-- but the malevolent center of this 'family' is their cold, hardened leader, Augustus Winter, a man with an almost pathological resistance to the rules of society and a preternatural gift for butchery.
- ISBN13 9780385539487
- Publish Date 14 April 2015 (first published 1 January 2015)
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 25 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Doubleday & Co Inc.
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 352
- Language English