Walking to Gatlinburg

A Great American Novel of Love and War

Publisher: Random House/Crown: Shaye Areheart Books, March 2010

(Read the first chapter here.)

Synopsis

It's 1864, and seventeen-year-old Morgan Kinneson is helping a runaway slave named Jesse to freedom in Canada. But the chance to kill a moose that would feed his family for months lures Morgan away, and on his return he finds that Jesse has been murdered.

Desperate and guilt-ridden, Morgan decides to travel south from northern Vermont through war-torn America to the Great Smoky Mountains, searching for his older brother Pilgrim, who is now missing from the Union Army. Mrogan's determination to locate the brother he idolizes and reclaim what little family and honor he feels he has left is a dangerous gambit, at best.

When Morgan learns that Jesse's killers are on his tail, and that he unknowingly possesses something of dear value, his trek to Gatlinburg becomes a journey of intense survival.