“Amity,” the new novel from bestselling author Nathan Harris, is quietly breathtaking. Chronicling the journeys of separated Black siblings across a tumultuous post-Civil War landscape, the book delivers a riveting tale of survival, relationship, and courage.
It’s 1866 in bustling New Orleans. Coleman, a young man once enslaved by the Harper family in Baton Rouge, continues to serve the histrionic matriarch and her strong-willed daughter, Florence, in their new home on the Gulf. Between running errands, cleaning house, and tending to Mrs. Harper’s constant demands, Coleman has scant time for his life’s few pleasures: the books in the household library or the peace of his attic room. The exception is a spotted, auburn-hued terrier named Oliver. Technically belonging to Florence, the sprightly pup – “the most intelligent, loyal companion one could ask for” – is doted upon by Coleman, who claims “in all ways that mattered, he was mine.”
Despite Oliver’s camaraderie, Coleman’s world has pinched into a dull routine. His older sister, June, his closest confidant and staunchest protector throughout childhood, has left. Two years prior, she was all but dragged to northern Mexico by Mr. Harper, an entitled, grasping bully long besotted with her – and newly obsessed with a mining project in the desert. They’ve barely been heard from since.
Why We Wrote This
The trials of Black families did not end with emancipation. Separation, coercion, and betrayal followed in the wake of slavery and demanded bravery and solidarity.
The story leaps into gear with the arrival of a letter on the family’s doorstep. At long last, Mr. Harper has written! The patriarch would like the ladies and Coleman to join him forthwith in Mexico; the letter’s bearer – a cold-eyed brute named Amos Turlow – will serve as guide.
The plan smells fishy to Coleman, but at least there’s a spot for Oliver.
As the party embarks on the first leg of the journey – a paddleboat excursion westward across the Gulf to the Port of Bagdad – Coleman learns from Turlow the truth behind the trip. June has disappeared, and Mr. Harper hopes her brother will be able to find and return her to their settlement at the mine. The secret alarms risk-averse Coleman, in both its challenge and its callousness: “It was not his family Mr. Harper sought. It was me.”
A perilous trip follows over deep waters, through hard-bitten towns, and into Mexico’s northern desert expanse – a baffling cauldron of threats to Coleman and the group. Governed by the French, claimed by the Mexicans, inhabited by Indigenous tribes, and desired by American newcomers, the hostile landscape and its punishing climate whipsaw the travelers – and quickly winnow their numbers.
Deftly woven throughout the narrative is the story’s second journey: June’s trek with Mr. Harper, plus a motley band of fellow seekers and opportunists, to the foot of the Sierra Madre. The travel exhausts them. “They encountered great cascades of nothingness,” Harris writes, “and when an occurrence ruptured from the blank of their surroundings it was almost always unwanted.” Here – and throughout “Amity” – the prose matches the moment: apt, emotive, encapsulating, and fresh.
June, desperate to escape the clutches of Mr. Harper, plots and waits. “She could bear anything,” she tells herself. After all, her former enslaver, a man who had the gall to abandon his family for a ludicrous project, “was a child. She could vanquish a child.”
Further fueling June’s resolve is a Black cowboy named Isaac she encounters while watering the oxen outside camp. His ease in the landscape, practical intelligence, local alliances, and obvious interest offer not just an escape, but one new amity – a true alternative to the abuse she’s endured.
Will the siblings find each another? Will courage bloom and refuge be found? It would be unkind to spoil the book’s entwined plots, but do know this: Transformation awaits, and buoyant Oliver indeed survives.
Harris’ 2021 debut, “The Sweetness of Water,” earned plaudits galore, including a spot on the Booker Prize long list and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. That story, too, wades through the Civil War’s wake alongside a pair of distinct, beautifully rendered Black siblings.
Now, in “Amity,” Harris intersperses gripping action and explosive standoffs (brace for violence) with quiet stretches tuned to the work at hand: characters shaping and presenting their true, free selves, each feeling “the forfeiture of a previous life give way to a new one.”
It’s a gorgeous, evocative triumph.
