Rose & Poe - Softcover

"Part crime/court novel, part legend, reminiscent of Of Mice and Men and The Tempest, you should be sure to add this to your TBR and snap it up as soon as it's available!" -- Partial to Prose blog

"Shades of William Faulkner! We have known for years that Jack Todd is one of North America's great sportswriters. With Rose & Poe he elevates his game to fiction -- and does so magnificently" -- Roy MacGregor, author of The Home Team and Canoe Country

In this backwoods New England Tempest, the cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces of Shakespeare's imagining have given way to a rickety tower built of railroad ties and a little yellow house with a goat shed out behind. Jack Todd transforms the story into a haunting parable, full of anger at the cruelties that deform modern America and of hope in the power of unconditional love. -- Mark Abley, author of Spoken Here: Travels among Threatened Languages.

“Powerful . . . Todd’s vivid language is perfectly suited to the epic sweep of his narrative.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review of Rain Falls Like Mercy

Set in mythical Belle Coeur County in a time not too far from our own, Rose & Poe gloriously re-imagines Shakespeare’s The Tempest from the point of view of Caliban and his mother.

Rose and her giant, simple son, Poe, live quietly on the fringes of their town — tending their goats and working at odd jobs. Prosper Thorne, banished from his big-city law practice and worrying about his fading memory, obsessively watches over his beloved daughter Miranda.

When Poe erupts from the forest one day carrying Miranda’s bruised and bloody body, he is arrested, despite his protestations of get help-get help-get help. Overnight, Rose and Poe find themselves pariahs in the county where they have lived all their lives. In the face of bitter hatred and threats from her neighbours, the implacable Rose devotes all her strength to proving Poe’s innocence and saving him from prison or worse.

Rose & Poe is a tale of a mother’s boundless love for an apparently unlovable child, and a stunning fable for our own troubled times. It will stick in your memory like sweet wild honey.