Back to Wando Passo: A Novel

About this book

David Payne has been hailed as "the most gifted American novelist of his generation" (Boston Globe) and has been likened to "Pat Conroy or perhaps a Southern John Irving" (Winston-Salem Journal). Now in his new novel Payne introduces us to Ransom Hill lead singer of a legendary-but-now-defunct indie rock group who has come to South Carolina to turn over a new leaf. A bighearted artist and a bit of a wild man Ran knows that his wife Claires patience with him hangs by a frayed thread. After a five-month separation hes come south from New York City to rejoin her and their two young children at Wando Passo Claires inherited family estate determined to save his marriage his family and himself. Back at Wando Passo though things dont proceed according to plan. Claire has taken a job teaching at the local music conservatory where the dean of the faculty Marcel Jones is one of Claires oldest friends. Its unclear -- to Ran at least -- whether Claire and Marcels relationship remains platonic or has evolved in his absence in a disturbing new direction. Matters are complicated further when Ran discovers a mysterious black pot of apparent slave manufacture buried on the grounds of Wando Passo. The unearthing of this relic transports Ransom -- and the reader -- back one hundred fifty years into the story of another love triangle at Wando Passo at the height of the Civil War . . . . . . May 1861. Claires great-great-great grand-mother Adelaide DeLay a beautiful thirty-three-year-old "spinster" from a top-drawer Charleston family arrives at Wando Passo by boat having made a marriage of convenience to the plantations future master Harlan DeLay. As Addie comes down the gangway she catches the eye of the plantations steward Jarry Harlans black half brother. Trans-fixed she sees something in Jarrys eyes "like a question that once posed you cannot rest until you have the answer to." In the present when two eroded skeletons turn up buried in shallow graves Ransom becomes obsessed with the identities of the bodies and what happened to them. Did the past triangle -- involving Addie Harlan and Jarry -- culminate in murder? As his marriage to Claire continues to unravel Ran begins to wonder whether disturbing echoes of the past are leading him Marcel and Claire toward a similar tragic outcome in the present. A fast-paced adventure story filled with lyrical writing wicked humor and unforgettable characters Back to Wando Passo propels the two love stories linked by place through time to a simultaneous crescendo of betrayal revenge and redemption and asks whether the present is doomed to ceaselessly repeat the past -- or if it can sometimes change and redeem it.