White ex-convict Cal Winter returns to his home in Oakland, California, one day to find his gorgeous, young, black wife, Prudence, drowned in the swimming pool. Prudence couldn’t swim, and Cal concludes she didn’t go in the water willingly. Though theirs was a marriage of convenience, he takes the murder personally. Along with his prison homie Red Eye, Cal sets out to find out who did Prudence in. His convoluted and often darkly humorous journey takes him deep into the world of the sexual urges of the rich and powerful, and gradually reveals the many layers of his wife’s complex identity. While doing so, Cal and Red Eye must confront their own racially charged pasts if the killer is to be caught.
Author James Kilgore has woven together strands of his own quixotic and complicated life—twenty-seven years as a political fugitive, two decades as a teacher in Africa, and six years in prison—into a heady tale of mystery and consequences.
About the author
James Kilgore was a 1960s political activist in California, ultimately becoming involved with the Symbionese Liberation Army. In 1975, he fled a Federal explosives charge and remained a fugitive for 27 years. During that time he rejected the politics of small group violence, and built a life as an educator, researcher, activist, parent, and partner in southern Africa. In 2002 he was arrested in Cape Town, and served six and a half years in California prisons. While incarcerated he wrote Prudence Couldn’t Swim, as well as We Are All Zimbabweans Now (Umuzi, 2009), and Freedom Never Rests (Jacana, 2011). Kilgore presently lives in Illinois with his wife and sons. He is a Research Scholar in the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois.
More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
790,778 Ebooks in this category
