This is how I imagine the main character, a young English Quaker who emigrates to America in 1850.
This town was a major stop on the Underground Railroad. Always a radical place, Oberlin College was the first to admit women and African Americans.
Many 19th-century American houses had “sick rooms” off the kitchen because someone often had a fever and needed tending. This one is at Hale’s Farm, Ohio.
Henry "Box" Brown was a slave who mailed himself to freedom.
In researching the novel, I learned how to quilt the way my heroine would have, and made this all by hand.
Their unity is based on shared understanding of the "Inner Light" in each person and a shared practice of silent worship.
“...emotionally riveting...portrays a pre-Civil War America full of contradictions, personified by a heroine facing the kinds of major moral challenges in her life that are playing out on a grand scale in her adopted country.”
"Tracy Chevalier has captured the timeless writing style that defines a classic. Honor Bright's story is quiet yet utterly captivating." Read more (spoiler alert: gives away rather a lot!)
"Tracy Chevalier has woven a rich tapestry here, setting her protagonist at the crossroads of a time explosive with issues surrounding slavery, rapidly changing industry, America's pioneering spirit and its racial divide." Read more
“As in her other books, Tracy Chevalier manages to transport the reader into the past with remarkable realism. The worlds of her characters seem small at the onset, but as one peels away the layers, they surprise with their depth…The Last Runaway is a fresh look into the history of slavery and the Quaker lifestyle. Highly recommended.” Read more
"Tracy Chevalier...has found a subject that both fascinates and moves her and the result is this quietly powerful and gripping novel" Read more
"...a novel that beautifully evokes the life and land surrounding Oberlin [Ohio] in the 1850s." Read more
"...the narrative has a confidence and measured pace that is the reward for the author’s immersion in her characters and subject matter...Without any flashy pyrotechnics, Tracy Chevalier demonstrates how traditional, linear narrative can still create a powerfully involving reading experience." Read more