Books by Madison Smartt Bell

In this first installment of his epic Haitian trilogy, Madison Smartt Bell brings to life a decisive moment in the history of race, class, and colonialism. The slave uprising in Haiti was a momentous contribution to the tide of revolution that swept over the Western world at the end of the 1700s. A brutal rebellion that strove to overturn a vicious system of slavery, the uprising successfully transformed Haiti from a European colony to the world’s first Black republic. From the center of this horrific maelstrom, the heroic figure of Toussaint Louverture–a loyal, literate slave and both a devout Catholic and Vodouisant–emerges as the man who will take the merciless fires of violence and vengeance and forge a revolutionary war fueled by liberty and equality.

Bell assembles a kaleidoscopic portrait of this seminal movement through a tableau of characters that encompass black, white, male, female, rich, poor, free and enslaved. Pulsing with brilliant detail, All Soul’s Rising provides a visceral sense of the pain, terror, confusion, and triumph of revolution.

Music and his ability to play the guitar allow twenty-year-old Jesse to escape from his dysfunctional family life by forming a band, called Anything Goes, that embark on a year-long tour across the South, building confidence in his abilities and coming to terms with where is from and where he is going. By the author of All Souls' Rising.

A 1991 collection of 10 stories that includes "Customs of the Country," "Petit Cachou," and "Move On Up."

A longtime resident and author of The Stone That the Builder Refused leads readers on a fascinating odyssey through the diverse, forgotten, and frequently overlooked sights and neighborhoods of Baltimore, bringing to life the city's important role in American history and its unique charm, culture, architecture, and landmarks. 25,000 first printing.

A tale inspired by the life of the infamous Civil War general imagines elements from his personal life, from his gambling addiction and courtship of his wife to his private abhorrence of military bureaucracy and relatively humane treatment of his slaves. By the author of Soldier's Joy.

An insomniac hypnotist in London is drawn, through his nightly wanderings, into a high-profile murder case involving the London underworld.

A re-release of the influential modernist poet's story about a journey through Soviet Russia traces the narrator's experiences in the 1930s during the rise of the Stalinist government and demonstrates the writer's diverse range of stylistic language. Reissue.

An account of the eighteenth century's race to understand the periodic elements traces the work of Enlightenment-era scientist Antoine Lavoisier, whose tireless efforts to define and explain chemical processes resulted in the establishment of a chemical language still in use today.

Continuing his epic trilogy of the Haitian slave uprising, Madison Smartt Bell’s Master of the Crossroads delivers a stunning portrayal of Toussaint Louverture,  former slave, military genius and liberator of Haiti, and his struggle against the great European powers to free his people in the only successful slave revolution in history. At the outset, Toussaint is a second-tier general in the Spanish army, which is supporting the rebel slaves’ fight against the French.   But w hen Toussaint is betrayed by his former allies and the commanders of the Spanish army, he reunites his army with the French, wresting vital territories and manpower from Spanish control. With his army one among several factions, Toussaint eventually rises as the ultimate victor as he wards off his enemies to take control of the French colony and establish a new constitution.

Bell’s grand, multifaceted novel shows a nation, splintered by actions and in the throes of chaos, carried to liberation and justice through the undaunted tenacity of one incredible visionary.

A roll-up-your-sleeves approach to writing fiction by one of today's best writers. With clarity, verve, and the sure instincts of a good teacher, Madison Smartt Bell illuminates the process of narrative design. In essays and analyses of twelve stories by established writers and students, Bell emphasizes the primary importance of form as the backdrop against which all other elements of a story must work. Discussions of the unconscious mind and creativity reinforce other essentials of good writing. Madison Smartt

With clarity, verve, and the sure instincts of a good teacher, Madison Smartt Bell offers a roll-up-your-sleeves approach to writing in this much-needed book. Focusing on the big picture as well as the crucial details, Bell examines twelve stories by both established writers (including Peter Taylor, Mary Gaitskill, and Carolyn Chute) and his own former students. A story's use of time, plot, character, and other elements of fiction are analyzed, and readers are challenged to see each story's flaws and strengths. Careful endnotes bring attention to the ways in which various writers use language. Bell urges writers to develop the habit of thinking about form and finding the form that best suits their subject matter and style. His direct and practical advice allows writers to find their own voice and imagination.

Macrae and Charlie meet by chance in New York's Battery Park. Macrae is AWOL from the army, living on the fringe. Charlie is a University of Chicago graduate and increasingly psychotic. Within minutes after their meeting, they've teamed up to rob the first of a series of victims carrying ATM cash cards.

Thomas Laidlaw, a Vietnam vet, returns to his family's Tennessee farm after the war, in a state of shock and depression, and spends his time practicing the banjo. He comes back to life when he meets up with his black friend from childhood, a fellow veteran named Redmon, and joins him in a war against the local Klansmen that is not unlike the one they left behind in Vietnam.

The sequel to All Souls' Rising and Master of the Crossroads continues the saga of Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the successful Haitian slave revolt, as he continues his struggle to free Haiti from the bonds of slavery and to build a new society on the roots of revolution.

Following the widely acclaimed All Souls’ Rising and Master of the Crossroads, Madison Smartt Bell gives us the climactic final chapter in the life of Toussaint Louverture, the legendary leader of the only successful slave revolution in history.

In 1791, what would become known as the Haitian Revolution began as a rebellion of African slaves against their white masters in the French colony of Saint Domingue. By 1793 Toussaint had emerged as the leader of the revolt, proving himself to be as adept at politics as he was on the battlefield. By 1801 he had succeeded in stabilizing the war-ravaged territory and invited exiled white planters, whose expertise was needed, to return and reclaim their properties. The foundation of a society based on liberty, genuine equality, and brotherhood among whites, blacks, and mulattos seemed in place. But the proclamation of a new constitution that abolished slavery and appointed Toussaint governor for life incited Napoleon to dispatch troops in order to reestablish control over the island.

The Stone That the Builder Refused spans the final phase of Toussaint’s career and paints an astonish-ingly detailed and riveting portrait of a new society breaking forth from the chrysalis of a revolution, of the vision that impelled Toussaint to create a society based on principle and idealism, and of the dreadful compromises he was forced to make in order to
preserve it.

A masterly weave of the factual and the imagined, this grand culmination of Bell’s landmark Toussaint Louverture trilogy stands alone as a towering achievement of historical fiction.

• Madison Smartt Bell was named one of the Best Young American Novelists under 40 by Granta • Bell’s most recent novel, All Souls’ Rising, was a finalist for the National Book Award and for the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction. One of the most gifted novelists at work today, Madison Smartt Bell turns his sharp eye to our own moment, and to the racial lines that have divided contemporary America. His landscape is inner-city Baltimore, where poverty, violence, and despair have imprisoned the city’s youth. Into this world steps Mike Devlin, a child psychiatrist whose successful practice has kept him comfortably, if frustratingly, detached from life’s harsher lessons. Devlin is a man who wants to do something, make a difference in the world. But when he opens a Tae Kwan Do school near a Baltimore housing project, the brutality of the streets, a series of violent deaths, and deadly misunderstandings shock him into seeing how limited his influence has been. In a complex, fast-paced narrative, several richly nuanced voices weave a powerful, deeply affecting story of possibility—hopeful and dangerous—between people whose connection is often defined only by its impossibility.

The critically acclaimed author of All Souls' Rising presents a masterful biography of Toussaint Louverture that captures the frequently contradictory and complex life of the leader of the late-eighteenth-century Haitian Revolution that became the only successful slave revolt in history. 20,000 first printing.

The critically acclaimed author of All Souls' Rising presents a masterful biography of Toussaint Louverture that captures the frequently contradictory and complex life of the leader of the late-eighteenth-century Haitian Revolution that became the only successful slave revolt in history. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

With no particular motive and a goal of total destruction, Larkin, an epileptic drunk, and four other derelicts plot an insane terrorist attack upon Manhattan.

New York City's Washington Square is the cruising ground of small-town drug dealer Johnny B. Goode, his main man, Holy Mother, his Black Muslim enforcer, a Puerto Rican voodooist, and the storytelling Porco Miserio.

Marian died by her own hand exactly one year ago. The author approaches Marian's death from the viewpoints of the people that touched her life including her lover, her best friend, and even her enemies.

Presents eleven short stories of irrationality and madness set in the ramshackle South, lower Manhattan, and the Great Plains of nineteenth-century America.