Cloudsplitter

Cloudsplitter is a 1998 historical novel by Russell Banks relating the story of abolitionist John Brown.The novel is narrated as a retrospective by John Brown's son, Owen Brown, from his hermitage in the San Gabriel Mountains of California. His reminiscences are triggered by the reception of an invitation from a Miss Mayo, assistant to Oswald Garrison Villard, then researching his book John Brown: A Biography Fifty Years After (Boston, 1910). The title of the book comes from a translation of the Iroquois word Tahawus, the name of the mountain—English name Mount Marcy—just beyond the Brown family estate. It is the highest mountain in New York State, and except for California, the highest mountain in the Union as of 1861. Until his death on January 7, 2023, Banks had lived for years in Keene, New York, near John Brown's Farm in North Elba, New York.