The Book: Cloudsplitter, by Russell Banks
The Story: Cloudsplitter is a novel about the abolitionist John Brown (of Harper’s Ferry/Bloody Kansas fame), as told by his last surviving son, Owen. This book is Owen’s life story and confession.
Owen describes what it was like being John Brown’s son, kind of revealing him as a deeply religious father with high moral standards and expectations for his children, as well as for himself. John Brown is a strong, compassionate, but demanding and commanding figure. When John Brown decided to really “go big” he took his sons along with him. Owen went, though reluctantly and became his father’s right hand man. Although he was admittedly reluctant at first, once he decided he was in, he was all the way in.
From the little cabin that he has lived in for years, Owen writes his long-winded tale about not only his upbringing, but his adulthood and the effect his family is still (in the early 1900’s when he is writing) having on politics and race relations.
What I Thought: Whew. It is always so hard to try to boil down an 800 page book into a few sentences.
I had this book on my TBR pile forever but kept putting it off. I even started it once and was totally turned off by the prose itself. In an attempt to really capture Owen’s voice, Russell Banks developed this old, long winded, preachy way of writing and at first it seemed awful. After I got into the flow and started to really identify who Owen was, the writing seemed perfect and I just sunk right into it. There are areas where it’s just way too wordy and was almost frustrating to read, but it just worked somehow. John Brown himself was a talker and a schemer and it just seemed like Owen picked up part of that. If nothing else, I applaud Russell Banks for picking a voice and sticking with it in a big way. It made Owen come to life.
I didn’t know a huge amount about John Brown before I read this and was pleased to find out that a good part of his life took place really near where I live! I even found out that there is a little memorial set up near here and I plan to go and see it once it gets warmer. It’s always fun to hear references to familiar places.
I knew very little about John Brown going into this- I knew that he was a white guy that wanted to end slavery and raided Harper’s Ferry which, in a lot of ways knocked over the dominoes that started the Civil War. Yes, dominos started the Civil War. You heard it here first, folks. 
Anyway, I loved learning more about his upbringing and family life. The father-son relationship here, the dynamic between Owen and John Brown is pretty much what made the book for me. Owen’s need/desire to rise to John Brown’s expectations despite his own inner voice was fascinating to me and just so well written. You could just feel this tension that was taking place in the young man’s mind- this cognitive dissonance. He knew what was right (not killing people, also not slavery) but also wanted to please his father (who thought that bloodshed was the only way to fix this problem) so badly. That back and forth in his mind was intense.
That’s all I’ve got. This is one of those books I could talk about for a long time- the race relations, how we change as we grow, childhood’s effect on our adulthood, the need for comfort and people, the Civil War… all fascinating things. I went into this book honestly expecting little but came away knowing a bit more not only about John Brown but about that time period and, really, about human nature. Pretty big deal.
Conclusion: Not a light, easy book by any stretch but one that I would say is worth the effort.
