Overview

Set in Virginia during the Civil War and a century beyond, this novel by the award-winning author of The Yellow Birds explores the brutal legacy of violence and exploitation in American society. Spanning over one hundred years, from the antebellum era to the 1980's, A Shout in the Ruins examines the fates of the inhabitants of Beauvais Plantation outside of Richmond, Virginia. When war arrives, the master of Beauvais, Anthony Levallios, foresees that dominion in a new America will be measured not in acres of tobacco under cultivation by his slaves, but in industry and capital. A grievously wounded Confederate veteran loses his grip on a world he no longer understands, and his daughter finds herself married to Levallois, an arrangement that feels little better than imprisonment. And two people enslaved at Beauvais plantation, Nurse and Rawls, overcome impossible odds to be together, only to find that the promise of coming freedom may not be something they will live to see. Seamlessly interwoven is the story of George Seldom, a man orphaned by the storm of the Civil War, looking back from the 1950s on the void where his childhood ought to have been. Watching the government destroy his neighborhood to build a stretch of interstate highway through Richmond, he travels south in an attempt to recover his true origins. With the help of a young woman named Lottie, he goes in search of the place he once called home, all the while reckoning with the more than 90 years he lived as witness to so much that changed during the 20th century, and so much that didn't. As we then watch Lottie grapple with life's disappointments and joys in the 1980's, now in her own middle-age, the questions remain: How do we live in a world built on the suffering of others? And can love exist in a place where for 400 years violence has been the strongest form of intimacy? Written with the same emotional intensity, harrowing realism, and poetic precision that made The Yellow Birds one of the most celebrated novels of the past decade, A Shout in the Ruins cements Powers' place in the forefront of American letters and demands that we reckon with the moral weight of our troubling history.

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9781549198403

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Reviews

Spiced with Flannery O'Connor-esque flavor, this rich brew of a novel evokes the checkered history of antebellum Virginia via run-down plantations and twilight marshes. -- O, The Oprah Magazine A Shout in the Ruins, as its title suggests, lays bare the tremendous suffering on which our country was founded and demands its acknowledgment. But Powers also offers love and grace in these pages, and a prayer for redemption. -- New York Times A searing look at the ravages of war and how violence can shape a nation in ways that may never be fully recoverable...a novel that powerfully explores how slavery has infected this country and how history is never really confined to the past. -- NPR With a complex structure reminiscent of Faulkner, Powers adroitly weaves his narrative threads together with subtle connections that reinforce his themes of longing for coherence and the continuing effect of the past on the present. An impressive novel. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Powers has given himself great freedom to explore and meditate on a wide swath of American history...A Shout in the Ruins is suitably unvarnished but not without moments of beauty or deep emotion...[and] brushes aside myth and romanticism for a clear-eyed look at American heritage. -- Shelf Awareness A masterly meditation on our unbreakable connection to a world predicated on cyclical violence. -- Library Journal Beautifully formed sentences express unsettling truths about humanity, yet tendrils of hope emerge, showing how love and kindness can take root in seemingly barren earth. -- Booklist An elegiac tale of corruption and pain in the American South...Explores the memories and tragedies that can be passed down the family tree...A fine, relevant novel. -- BookPage A harrowing and lyrical epic in miniature, Powers has written a novel excavated from another time but which speaks profoundly to this one. -- Elliot Ackerman, author of Dark at the Crossing

A harrowing and lyrical epic in miniature, Powers has written a novel excavated from another time but which speaks profoundly to this one. -- Elliot Ackerman, author of Dark at the Crossing An elegiac tale of corruption and pain in the American South...Explores the memories and tragedies that can be passed down the family tree...A fine, relevant novel. -- BookPage Beautifully formed sentences express unsettling truths about humanity, yet tendrils of hope emerge, showing how love and kindness can take root in seemingly barren earth. -- Booklist A masterly meditation on our unbreakable connection to a world predicated on cyclical violence. -- Library Journal Powers has given himself great freedom to explore and meditate on a wide swath of American history...A Shout in the Ruins is suitably unvarnished but not without moments of beauty or deep emotion...[and] brushes aside myth and romanticism for a clear-eyed look at American heritage. -- Shelf Awareness With a complex structure reminiscent of Faulkner, Powers adroitly weaves his narrative threads together with subtle connections that reinforce his themes of longing for coherence and the continuing effect of the past on the present. An impressive novel. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A searing look at the ravages of war and how violence can shape a nation in ways that may never be fully recoverable...a novel that powerfully explores how slavery has infected this country and how history is never really confined to the past. -- NPR A Shout in the Ruins, as its title suggests, lays bare the tremendous suffering on which our country was founded and demands its acknowledgment. But Powers also offers love and grace in these pages, and a prayer for redemption. -- New York Times Spiced with Flannery O'Connor-esque flavor, this rich brew of a novel evokes the checkered history of antebellum Virginia via run-down plantations and twilight marshes. -- O, The Oprah Magazine

Author Information

Kevin Powers is the author of The Yellow Birds, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and was a National Book Award Finalist, as well as Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting, a collection of poetry. He was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, and holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Michener Fellow in Poetry. He served in the US Army in 2004 and 2005 in Iraq, where he was deployed as a machine gunner in Mosul and Tal Afar. Robert Petkoff has won multiple AudioFile Earphones awards for his acclaimed narrations. He was named Best Voice of Fiction & Classics for his reading of The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale. His other narration credits include Oath of Office by Michael Palmer, Gangster Squad by Paul Lieberman, and books by David Foster Wallace.Petkoff has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in theaters across America and Europe.He has worked in television and film. His theater credits include Lord Evelyn Oakleigh in the Broadway production of Anything Goes, Perchik as part of the Tony-nomianted cast of Fiddler on the Roof, and Hubert Humphrey in the Tony award-winning play All the Way. He has also had numerous roles in television on shows such as Law and Order and Married with Children.

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