Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South
By Beth Macy
Read by Suzanne Toren
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1 Format: CD
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Regular Price: $40.00
Special Price $26.00
ISBN: 9781478942528
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The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a twenty-eight-year struggle to get them back. The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever. Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even “Ambassadors from Mars.” Back home, their mother never accepted that they were “gone” and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.
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Summary
A 2016 New York Times Book Review Notable Book
A New York Times Editor’s Choice
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2016
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Book of 2016
Longlisted for the 2017 Carnegie Medal for Literature
An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick for October 2016
An Entertainment Weekly Pick of Books to Read This Fall
A BookPage Best Book of 2016
A Kirkus Reviews Pick of the Best Nonfiction of 2016
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, 2016
Finalist for the 2016 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction
A Houston Chronicle Pick for 2016
The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a twenty-eight-year struggle to get them back.
The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever.
Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even “Ambassadors from Mars.” Back home, their mother never accepted that they were “gone” and spent 28 years trying to get them back.
Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Details
Details
Available Formats : | CD |
Category: | Nonfiction/History |
Runtime: | 10.89 |
Audience: | Adult |
Language: | English |
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