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Even As We Breathe

A Novel

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 4 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 4 weeks
Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. With World War II raging in Europe, the inn is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. Soon, Cowney's refuge becomes a cage when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing and he finds himself accused of abduction and murder.
Even As We Breathe invokes the elements of bone, blood, and flesh as Cowney navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divides. After leaving the seclusion of the Cherokee reservation, he is able to explore a future free from the consequences of his family's choices and to construct a new worldview, for a time. However, prejudice and persecution in the white world of the resort eventually compel Cowney to free himself from larger forces that hold him back as he struggles to unearth evidence of his innocence and clear his name.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 20, 2020
      Clapsaddle’s lush debut thrusts 19-year-old Cowney Sequoyah into WWII intrigue. In 1942, Cowney leaves his home on the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina for a groundskeeping job at Asheville’s Grove Park Inn and Resort, which is being used by the government to intern enemy diplomats and their families. On the grounds, he uncovers a mysterious, human-looking bone, which he shows only to fellow Cherokee Essie Stomper, whom he falls for. Essie doesn’t share Cowney’s feelings, however, and embarks on a forbidden affair with Andrea, an Italian “guest.” Meanwhile, Cowney keeps quiet with his family about his doubts over the sketchy details shared with him about his father’s death by the Germans following Armistice Day. After a diplomat’s young child goes missing, and Essie, sure Cowney told their boss about her relationship with Andrea, tells the soldiers guarding the resort about the bone Cowney has been holding onto. A colonel confiscates the bone, which he takes to be a sign of Cowney’s evil nature and casts him under suspicion (“I know you people do all kinds of godforsaken things”). The clear, crisp prose hums consistently as the intricate story easily moves along and new details about Cowney’s family’s past emerge. Both an astonishing addition to WWII and Native American literature, this novel sings on every level.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Hawaiian actor Kaipo Schwab performs the first published novel by a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. In the middle of WWII, Cowney Sequoyah is hired to be a groundskeeper at the historic Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina. While there, he learns more about the Axis diplomats being held prisoner at the inn. But when a Japanese girl goes missing, the U.S. military sets their eyes on Cowney. Schwab performs teenage angst perfectly, capturing Cowney's earnestness and hope for a better future. Occasionally, Kaipo struggles to maintain the listener's attention but makes up for it with his deep understanding of the story's characters and his performance of their dialogue. K.D.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

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  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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