Clarence Olgibee

It starts with a murder. In 1974, 17-year-old Jimmy Tate Sullivan watched his two friends bludgeon to death a black man. Sentenced to life for abetting the crime, Sullivan is initiated into a white- supremacist church by a fellow convict, once the best friend of an African-American teenager, Clarence Olgibee. Shifting back to 1954, this family saga is about race, religion, and the powerful white men in a sleepy Midwestern town who plan a new world order Olgibee tries to escape. Small choices have fateful consequences— in this life and the next. Olgibee’s choices lead him back to the two women he loved and an ultimate decision.

From the Inside Flap

A man's character is his fate--Heraclitus

From the Back Cover

Kessler exposes the rotten heart of racism and class conflict as lives in a small Ohio city intersect in startling ways. No one--not the white supremacists, the aspiring black residents, the white liberal do-gooders--escapes the author's pessimism and disgust at the human condition. In the unmitigated darkness of his satire, Kessler proves himself the true American heir of Louis-Ferdinand Celine.--Diane Lefer, PEN USA Author's Choice Award Winner for Radiant Hunger.

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