{"product_id":"back-to-wando-passo-a-novel-9780060851897","title":"Back to Wando Passo: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003eDavid 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45953331920949,"sku":"ByrdShop_0060851899","price":21.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780060851897.jpg?v=1788185458","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/back-to-wando-passo-a-novel-9780060851897","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}