Banks, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, died Saturday in upstate New York, his editor, Dan Halpern, told The Associated Press. Cloudsplitter was his most ambitious novel, a 750-page narrative on John Brown and his improbable quest to rid the country of slavery. Go read “Cloudsplitter.” Banks does a remarkable service breaking through the passions and insanity of John Brown. As remembered by son Owen Brown, John Brown was a haunted man of the Old World whose resolve to free the slaves and punish the enslavers made his face burn like a revivalist preacher's. Banks's own father, Earl Banks, was an alcoholic whom the author says beat him as a child and left him with a permanently damaged left eye.

Source: New York Times January 08, 2023 20:19 UTC