The Relation of My Imprisonment: A Fiction

An Omnibus Edition of Three Classic Early Novels from the Critically Acclaimed Author of Cloudsplitter and Affliction“Banks has skillfully used his repertoire of contemporary techniques to write a novel that is classically American—a dark, but sometimes funny, romance with echoes of Poe and Melville.” — Washington Post"A marvelously written little book, fascinatingly intricate, yet deceptively simple. Well worth reading more than once." — New York Times Book ReviewFamily Life: Russell Banks's first novel is an adult fairy tale of a royal family in a mythical contemporary kingdom where the myriad dramas of domesticity blend with an outrageous slew of murders, mayhem, coups, debauches, world tours, and love in all guises, transcendent or otherwise.Hamilton Stark: This tale of a solitary, boorish, misanthropic New Hampshire pipe fitter—the sole inhabitant of the house from which he evicted his own mother—is at once a compelling meditation on identity and a thoroughly engaging story of life on the cold edge of New England.The Relation of My Imprisonment: Utilizing a form invented by imprisoned seventeenth-century Puritan divines—an utterly sincere and detailed, if highly artificial, recounting of great suffering—Banks's novel is a remarkably inventive, lovingly good-humored argument, exploration, and map of the caged religious mind.

New York Times Book Review

"A marvelously written little book, fascinatingly intricate, yet deceptively simple. Well worth reading more than once."

Washington Post Book World

“Witty and profound. . . Russell Bank’s tale of a jailed coffin-maker is a small but marvelous addition to the gallery of trapped minds.”

Chicago Sun-Times

“Stunning and original. . . . Russell Banks’s most sustained, intricate, and impressive work to date.”

Newsweek

“A success. . . . Ironic, melancholy, and haunting.”

a dark, but sometimes funny, romance with echoes of Poe and Melville.”

“Banks has skillfully used his repertoire of contemporary techniques to write a novel that is classically American

From the Back Cover

The Relation of My Imprisonment is a work of fiction utilizing a form invented in the seventeenth century by imprisoned Puritan divines. Designed to be exemplary, works of this type were aimed at brethren outside the prison walls and functioned primarily as figurative dramatization of the test of faith all true believers must endure. These "relation," framed by scripture and by a sermon explicating the text, were usually read aloud in weekly or monthly installments during religious services. Utterly sincere and detailed recounting of suffering, they were nonetheless highly artificial. To use the form self-consciously, as Russell Banks has done, is not to parody it so much as to argue good-humoredly with the mind it embodies, to explore and, if possible, to map the limits of that mind, the more intelligently to love it.

About the Author

Russell Banks, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was one of America’s most prestigious fiction writers, a past president of the International Parliament of Writers, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and he received numerous prizes and awards, including the Common Wealth Award for Literature. He died in January 2023 at the age of eighty-two.

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