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The Promise of the Pelican : A Novel
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The Promise of the Pelican
Author(s): Roy Hoffman
For fans of Harper Lee and Rita Mae Brown, Roy Hoffman's new novel is steeped in a sense of place--coastal Alabama--with its rich tapestry of characters caught in a web of justice not for all.
Early Praise for The Promise of the Pelican:
"Roy Hoffman has written a fast-paced, mesmerizing and incredibly moving contemporary novel about human and civil rights,"-- bestselling author Lee Smith
"A thrilling novel, with characters as memorable as those of Shakespearean tragedy...I could not put it down." --Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife
At once a literary crime novel and an intergenerational family drama, The Promise of the Pelican is set in the multicultural South, where justice might depend on the color of your skin and your immigration status. Hank Weinberg is a modern day Atticus Finch, recently retired as a defense attorney in Mobile, Alabama, and a Holocaust survivor, who fled the Nazis as a young child. With his daughter in rehab, he's now taking care of his special needs grandson. Mourning his dead wife, spending mornings fishing on the pier with other octogenarians, he passes the rest of his days watching over his sweet grandson with the help of Lupita, a young Honduran babysitter. When her brother Julio, an undocumented immigrant, is accused of murder, Hank must return to the courtroom to defend him while also trying to save his daughter and grandson's life from spinning out of control. The Promise of the Pelican takes its title from the legend that a pelican will pierce its own breast for blood to feed its starving chicks, a metaphor for one old man who risks all to save the vulnerable.
In a crisp prose style Harper Lee called "lean and clean," Hoffman writes from an enormous well of compassion. He fills his new novel with a cast of finely drawn characters of all ages and abilities facing life's harshest challenges and rising to meet them with dignity.
Review(s):
"Roy Hoffman has written a fast-paced, mesmerizing and incredibly moving contemporary novel about human and civil rights,"-- bestselling author Lee Smith
"A thrilling novel, with characters as memorable as those of Shakespearean tragedy...I could not put it down." --Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife
"Though a murder is at the center of this masterly novel, Roy Hoffman is most interested in writing about people; the best of us and the worst of us, how we feel, how we think, how we act, how we react in a crisis. In The Promise of the Pelican, Hoffman weaves an extraordinary tale of heartache and pain, of people desperately trying to connect, trying to make sense out of the senseless, ultimately asking whether true justice is possible in an imperfect world."--Charles Salzberg, twice Shamus nominated author of “Second Story Man” and the Henry Swann series
"With The Promise of the Pelican, Roy Hoffman secures his place alongside the great American writers from the Deep South -- Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, Lee Smith, and Harper Lee. Our best novels transport and transform us, and The Promise of the Pelican does that and more. The story is compelling, the writing is elegant and economical, and every scene poignant and powerful. You can feel the heat of the Deep South, the tensions throughout, and the hope of a better world that gives meaning and life to his characters." -- Michael J. Gerhardt, distinguished professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Law School, and author of Lincoln’s Mentors: The Education of a Leader.
In Praise of Roy Hoffman's previous novels:
“Read this novel to find, from Europe and the past, characters who represent some of the best aspects of our Southern heritage. A story of great appeal in prose lean and clean. Congratulations to Roy Hoffman for his fine work.”--Harper Lee (for Chicken Dreaming Corn, 2004)
“Hoffman’s generation-spanning novel of love, war, and hurricanes brings the Mississippi Gulf Coast vividly to life.” --Reader’s Digest: 7 Great Books From Small Presses, by Dawn Raffel (for Come Landfall, 2014)
“Hoffman never lets facts flatten his characters; he has made them too human – too strong or too stubborn – for that.”--New Yorker (for Almost Family, 1983)
ISBN: 9781950994342
Author(s): Roy Hoffman
For fans of Harper Lee and Rita Mae Brown, Roy Hoffman's new novel is steeped in a sense of place--coastal Alabama--with its rich tapestry of characters caught in a web of justice not for all.
Early Praise for The Promise of the Pelican:
"Roy Hoffman has written a fast-paced, mesmerizing and incredibly moving contemporary novel about human and civil rights,"-- bestselling author Lee Smith
"A thrilling novel, with characters as memorable as those of Shakespearean tragedy...I could not put it down." --Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife
At once a literary crime novel and an intergenerational family drama, The Promise of the Pelican is set in the multicultural South, where justice might depend on the color of your skin and your immigration status. Hank Weinberg is a modern day Atticus Finch, recently retired as a defense attorney in Mobile, Alabama, and a Holocaust survivor, who fled the Nazis as a young child. With his daughter in rehab, he's now taking care of his special needs grandson. Mourning his dead wife, spending mornings fishing on the pier with other octogenarians, he passes the rest of his days watching over his sweet grandson with the help of Lupita, a young Honduran babysitter. When her brother Julio, an undocumented immigrant, is accused of murder, Hank must return to the courtroom to defend him while also trying to save his daughter and grandson's life from spinning out of control. The Promise of the Pelican takes its title from the legend that a pelican will pierce its own breast for blood to feed its starving chicks, a metaphor for one old man who risks all to save the vulnerable.
In a crisp prose style Harper Lee called "lean and clean," Hoffman writes from an enormous well of compassion. He fills his new novel with a cast of finely drawn characters of all ages and abilities facing life's harshest challenges and rising to meet them with dignity.
Review(s):
"Roy Hoffman has written a fast-paced, mesmerizing and incredibly moving contemporary novel about human and civil rights,"-- bestselling author Lee Smith
"A thrilling novel, with characters as memorable as those of Shakespearean tragedy...I could not put it down." --Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife
"Though a murder is at the center of this masterly novel, Roy Hoffman is most interested in writing about people; the best of us and the worst of us, how we feel, how we think, how we act, how we react in a crisis. In The Promise of the Pelican, Hoffman weaves an extraordinary tale of heartache and pain, of people desperately trying to connect, trying to make sense out of the senseless, ultimately asking whether true justice is possible in an imperfect world."--Charles Salzberg, twice Shamus nominated author of “Second Story Man” and the Henry Swann series
"With The Promise of the Pelican, Roy Hoffman secures his place alongside the great American writers from the Deep South -- Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, Lee Smith, and Harper Lee. Our best novels transport and transform us, and The Promise of the Pelican does that and more. The story is compelling, the writing is elegant and economical, and every scene poignant and powerful. You can feel the heat of the Deep South, the tensions throughout, and the hope of a better world that gives meaning and life to his characters." -- Michael J. Gerhardt, distinguished professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Law School, and author of Lincoln’s Mentors: The Education of a Leader.
In Praise of Roy Hoffman's previous novels:
“Read this novel to find, from Europe and the past, characters who represent some of the best aspects of our Southern heritage. A story of great appeal in prose lean and clean. Congratulations to Roy Hoffman for his fine work.”--Harper Lee (for Chicken Dreaming Corn, 2004)
“Hoffman’s generation-spanning novel of love, war, and hurricanes brings the Mississippi Gulf Coast vividly to life.” --Reader’s Digest: 7 Great Books From Small Presses, by Dawn Raffel (for Come Landfall, 2014)
“Hoffman never lets facts flatten his characters; he has made them too human – too strong or too stubborn – for that.”--New Yorker (for Almost Family, 1983)
ISBN: 9781950994342