Book description
When Thomas Fox Averill first heard Jimmy Driftwood's ballad
"Tennessee Stud," he found the song hauntingly compelling.
As he began to imagine the story behind the lyrics, he set out to
research the song's history--a tale from "along about eighteen
and twenty-five" of the legendary exploits of the greatest horse
that ever lived, the "Tennessee Stud," and his owner.
Traveling the same route the song chronicles, from Tennessee into
Arkansas, through Texas and into Mexico, Averill visited racetracks,
Spanish missions, historical museums, a living history farm, and
national parks, inventing characters of his own along the way. His
novel captures the spirit of the ballad while telling the story of
Robert Johnson, a man who holds love in his heart though adventure
rules his time. Pursued by a bounty hunter, Indians, and his
conscience, Johnson and his horse are tested, strengthened, and made
resolute.
“Both an odyssey and a great love story, rode is made compelling by
its thoughtful hero and the surprising woman he longs for. Precise
language and authentic detail render a vivid sense of another time,
and Averill's Southern landscape, so beautifully drawn, is peopled
with unforgettable men and women.” -Laura Moriarty, author of The
Center of Everything.
“No one drives a narrative better than Thomas Fox Averill, and this
novel version of a grand American tale shows Tom Averill's skills at
their best. rode performs not only through action but the perfect
articulation of 19th Century Arkansas and Tennessee. Averill knows the
lingo, blunt, uncompromising, and accurate, from saddle trees to
foals, and even to a dauncy mare, a wonderful allusion to the author's
Scottish heritage and ours. This is complicated evocation of
character, yes, in Robert Johnson, Jo Benson, and others; but even
more, Thomas Averill's narrative rides evocative language like a great
stud horse.”-Robert Stewart, author of Outside Language:
Essays, editor, New Letters magazine
Thomas Fox Averill, a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers'
Workshop, is professor of English and writer- in-residence at Washburn
University in Topeka, Kansas.
