
2022
First Published
4.00
Average Rating
458
Number of Pages
The idea for Pursuing John Brown began in Hudson, Ohio, where John Brown grew up and where Joyce Dyer has lived for forty years. In 2007, a chance occurrence started her off on the pursuit of her controversial neighbor, a quest that simultaneously pulled Dyer into his century, and John Brown into hers. In this work of hybrid creative nonfiction, Dyer retraces John Brown's steps across the country, occasionally taking roads that lead to tangential sites. Along the way, intimate questions form about John Brown's personal life-his role as son, husband, father, friend. Her pursuit forces her to confront hard questions about slavery, race, violence, and American democracy and brings her closer to understanding John Brown, herself, and us.
Avg Rating
4.00
Number of Ratings
10
5 STARS
20%
4 STARS
60%
3 STARS
20%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

Joyce Dyer
Author · 5 books
Joyce Dyer is director of the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature at Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio, and John S. Kenyon Professor of English. Dyer is the author of three books, The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings, In a Tangled Wood: An Alzheimer’s Journey, and Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town, and the editor of Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers. She has published essays in magazines such as North American Review, cream city review, and High Plains Literary Review. Dyer has won numerous awards for her writing, including the 1998 Appalachian Book of the Year Award and the 2009 David B. Saunders Award in Creative Nonfiction.