Michael C. White (1)

Soul Catcher by Michael C. White is the story of Augustus Cain, a down on his luck gambler, wounded Mexican-American War veteran and well known fugitive slave catcher. After losing badly to a Mr. Eberly, a wealthy Virginian landowner, Cain finds himself on the road to tracking down two runaway slaves, Henry and Rosetta. He is joined by three of Eberly’s men and their journey leads them north to New York and eventually Boston to capture the runaways.

It is on the dangerous return journey show more that Cain begins to question why he is bringing these people back to a life of harsh captivity. As the journey becomes his means of redemption, the reader is also given a vivid picture of the American nation on the brink of the upcoming Civil War. Some interesting people cross their paths, including the famous abolitionist John Brown, along with various con-men, patrollers and wise women both black and white. Cain is a flawed antihero but even though he exists in a laudanum haze, he is a deep thinker and Rosetta becomes someone that we want to see succeed in her quest for freedom.

Soul Catcher is beautifully written and comes to life on the pages. The violence and divided loyalties ring true as both well-crafted scenes and a high body count hold the reader’s attention. Although the outcome was somewhat obvious, the getting there was a truly captivating story and the Epilogue brought the story full circle as the conflicted Southerner comes to a moral reckoning. show less

In 1850's Virginia Augustus Cain is a war scarred man, addicted to laudanum, he has one talent - the ability to track and return runaway slaves to their owners. Each time he does this he thinks it will be the last time and he will go west. Unfortunately he gambles unwisely and ends up in debt to a man who wants two slaves returned. As he tracks and finds the runaways he questions what he is doing and the companions foisted on him by his employer.

This is a wonderful picture of time and place. show more I loved nearly every word of the story as we learn more about Cain and his moral dilemma. The tensions between North and South; abolitionists and slave owners are well described. The two main characters, Cain and the runaway Rosetta, have a realistic relationship as both learn something from each other. The supporting characters are a mix of types and all add their own flavour to the story.

Michael C. White is one of my favourite discoveries of the year. This was the second of his books that I have read and he writes quality historical fiction. I can't wait to read more of his work. show less

In many ways, this reminded me of another book I loved, Cold Mountain. Both have characters motivated by love traveling throught a brutal yet beautiful part of America. This story is about Augustus Cain, a down on his luck slave catcher, called soul catcher by slaves, who is hired by a wealthy man to catch and return two of his runaway slaves. He is most particularly interested in the return of Rosetta, the female who has run away before. Driven by the need to make money to get back on his show more feet and the belief that he is obeying the law by returning property to its rightful owner, Cain's mission gets complicated by his fellow slave-catchers, abolitionists and Rosetta herself. This is a beautifully written novel about an ugly period in American history. The characters and setting were so well-drawn that I was able to clearly imagine the story as it unfolded. What a great book! show less

Soul Catcher is a solid adventure tale set sometime between 1855 and 1859, following the changing fortunes and heart of a slave hunter. I enjoyed reading it for pleasure, and as a part of my study of the craft of writing historical fiction. If the theme interests you, it's worth your time to read.

That said, I have two problems with the book. The first concerns the figure of John Brown himself, whose life is sufficiently well known to make it impossible to imagine a time in which he would show more personally have led a group of armed abolitionists in the East chasing slave hunters. The author would have done much better not to name his soul catcher chasing John Brown character "John Brown." This criticism comes simply from knowing too much history for my own good. I recognize it as a danger any writer of historical fiction faces: the story must be written in the interstices of the known, in the spaces between the incontrovertible facts, in those places and moments where we hope the reader is sufficiently ignorant that we may play our tricks as writers. It may be necessary to estimate how much of the history is known to your audience, and hope that they are not experts. You always run the danger of finding a reader who simply knows too much to suspend disbelief and follow you into your story. Unfortunately I am one of those readers.

Second, I asked myself repeatedly whether the relationship between the slave catcher and the woman he first catches, and then develops a more complicated relationship with, really was imaginable in the mid-nineteenth century. Sometimes I thought "yes" but too often I found myself wondering whether these were not modern ideas and people, placed in the mouths and clothes of 19th century characters. This too is a recognizably difficult problem for any writer. When we write a story set in the past, what elements of obvious modernity shall we allow to remain? And what elements of the period do we bring forward to signify that we are situated in the past? White, for example, brings forward period details about horses and guns and slave catching, and quite a few 19th century expressions (at least they sound to me like 19th century expressions.) These were all quite well deployed. But if we desire to know also the inner emotional lives of 19th century characters, then an author faces a much greater challenge. I'm not sure that I'm up to meeting it myself as a writer, but I'm not entirely persuaded by White's effort to do so either. Would the central relationship described in this book even be possible in its time and place? Is it possible on the terms and with the feelings that the characters express here? What did love and sex really feel like, and how did they express themselves in the 19th century? And if we grasp that, then how would the unique situation of this slave chaser and this former slave modify these realities?

These difficulties aside, the author does a very credible job of building a range of supporting characters who struck me as thoroughly 19th century in their aspects. Again, their persuasiveness may be related to the exteriority with which they are portrayed. Writing nineteenth century exteriors (surfaces, language, clothing, expressions) is one thing, but writing 19th century interiors a whole other literary challenge.

Finally, to White's credit the conclusion of the book doesn't take the easy way out, and by steering his tale away from the easy romantic possibilities that his story offers, White in the end writes a convincing tale of a southern man's journey through life. If we are not entirely persuaded by every one of the emotions and conversations that pass on the way, the larger arc of the life that is portrayed seems true to its time and place. show less