Once Two Heroes

A black former Frenchman and an older Mississippi family man serve together in World War II only to confront the painful post-war realities of American racism, which they experience in the wake of a murder, a police chase, and a desperate bid for freedom. By the author of Once Two Heroes. Reprint.

Literature & Fiction

Baker, Calvin

United States

Penguin??Books

A multigenerational tale forms a portrait of a people's passage to a new world, following the voices, as one flows into the next, of six African Americans, beginning with Ampofo, who is brought as slave cargo to America. A first novel.

Naming the New World: A Novel

St Martins Pr

A young African American man searches for his identity and the home of a great tree planted by his grandfather

A black former Frenchman and an older Mississippi family man serve together in World War II only to confront the painful post-war realities of American racism, which they experience in the wake of a murder, a police chase, and a desperate bid for freedom. By the author of Once Two Heroes. 20,000 first printing.

Once Two Heroes: A Novel

Viking Adult

Calvin Baker burst upon the literary scene at age twenty-three with Naming the New World, a first novel of stunning ambition and tragic grandeur. Now, in his second novel, Baker more than fulfills his early promise of great things to come.  Once Two Heroes is the story of black and white America and the aftermath of World War II. Two men go off to serve their country in the war against tyranny and return home heroes: Mather, a black man who grew up in France, and Lewis, from a genteel, old, white Mississippi family. On the battlefield, they fought as equals, each proving himself a man to be reckoned with. But back home in America, Mather and Lewis learn, each in his own way, that what happened in war was no preparation for the brutal violence of peace. Disastrous circumstances-including a murder in Mississippi, a police chase, a desperate bid for freedom-bring these two men face-to-face on a night that changes both of their lives forever.

Thorndike Pr

With Calvin Baker's first two novels, Naming The New World and Once Two Heroes, he has continued to be acclaimed by the major media from the Los Angeles Times to Esquire. Now, with Dominion, Baker has written a lush, incantatory novel about three generations of an African American family in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. Dominion tells the story of the Merian family who, at the close of the seventeenth century, settle in the wilderness of the Carolinas. Jasper is the patriarch, freed from bondage, who manages against all odds to build a thriving estate with his new wife and two sons — one enslaved, the other free. For one hundred years, the Merian family struggles against the natural (and occasionally supernatural) world, colonial politics, the injustices of slavery, the Revolutionary War and questions of fidelity and the heart. Footed in both myth and modernity, Calvin Baker crafts a rich, intricate and moving novel, with meditations on God, responsibility, and familial legacies. While masterfully incorporating elements of the world's oldest and greatest stories, the end result is a bold contemplation of the origins of America.

Dominion: A Novel

GROVE PRESS

With Calvin Baker’s first novel, Naming The New World, he was named a Notable First Novelist” by Time magazine. Since his second novel, Once Two Heroes, Baker has continued to be acclaimed by the major media from the Los Angeles Times to Esquire. Now, with Dominion, Baker has written a lush, incantatory novel about three generations of an African American family in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. Dominion tells the story of the Merian family who, at the close of the seventeenth century, settle in the wilderness of the Carolinas. Jasper is the patriarch, freed from bondage, who manages against all odds to build a thriving estate with his new wife and two sons one enslaved, the other free. For one hundred years, the Merian family struggles against the natural (and occasionally supernatural) world, colonial politics, the injustices of slavery, the Revolutionary War and questions of fidelity and the heart. Footed in both myth and modernity, Calvin Baker crafts a rich, intricate and moving novel, with meditations on God, responsibility, and familial legacies. While masterfully incorporating elements of the world’s oldest and greatest stories, the end result is a bold contemplation of the origins of America.

Grace

Harper Roland has abandoned his job as a war correspondent, and returned home a weary, jaded 37-year-old. Uncertain of the future but determined to move forward with his life, he begins a search for enduring love--hoping he will also regain the ability to see the beauty of the world. Along the way, he meets an intellectually gifted but emotionally absent doctor, a beautiful Parisian artist who burns too hot to the touch, and a human rights lawyer who has left New York in search of a more centered life. The novel's sweeping tale encompasses four continents--where prior assumptions are constantly tested, and men who cling too passionately to certainty unleash destruction--and ultimately leads Harper back to the chaos he was trying to escape. The result is a startlingly fresh view of the contemporary world, in which place and history are mere starting points for the deeper journey into the geography of the human heart.

Literary

GALLERY BOOKS

Harper Roland has abandoned his job as a war correspondent, and returned home a weary, jaded 37-year-old. Uncertain of the future but determined to move forward with his life, he begins a search for enduring love--hoping he will also regain the ability to see the beauty of the world.
Along the way, he meets an intellectually gifted but emotionally absent doctor, a beautiful Parisian artist who burns too hot to the touch, and a human rights lawyer who has left New York in search of a more centered life.
The novel's sweeping tale encompasses four continents--where prior assumptions are constantly tested, and men who cling too passionately to certainty unleash destruction--and ultimately leads Harper back to the chaos he was trying to escape. The result is a startlingly fresh view of the contemporary world, in which place and history are mere starting points for the deeper journey into the geography of the human heart.

A provocative case for integration as the single most radical, discomfiting idea in America, yet the only enduring solution to the racism that threatens our democracy. Americans have prided ourselves on how far we've come from slavery, lynching, and legal segregation-measuring ourselves by incremental progress instead of by how far we have to go. But fifty years after the last meaningful effort toward civil rights, the US remains overwhelmingly segregated and unjust. Our current solutions -- diversity, representation, and desegregation -- are not enough. As acclaimed writer Calvin Baker argues in this bracing, necessary book, we first need to envision a society no longer defined by the structures of race in order to create one. The only meaningful remedy is integration: the full self-determination and participation of all African-Americans, and all other oppressed groups, in every facet of national life. This is the deepest threat to the racial order and the real goal of civil rights. At once a profound, masterful reading of US history from the colonial era forward and a trenchant critique of the obstacles in our current political and cultural moment, A More Perfect Reunion is also a call to action. As Baker reminds us, we live in a revolutionary democracy. We are one of the best-positioned generations in history to finish that revolution.

A More Perfect Reunion: Race, Integration, and the Future of America

History

Americas

Bold Type Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baker, Calvin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Baker, Calvin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baker, Calvin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Once Two Heroes

Naming the New World: A Novel

Naming the New World: A Novel

Once Two Heroes: A Novel

Once Two Heroes

Dominion: A Novel

Dominion: A Novel

Grace

Grace

A More Perfect Reunion: Race, Integration, and the Future of America