The Rebel Wife

Praise for

“This is a wonderful first novel—passionate and brave. It removes the skin of an era and questions so many of the tropes that hover around nineteenth-century southern American literature. It was Faulkner who, in the twentieth century, talked about the voice of Fiction being inexhaustible. Taylor Polites has extended our narrative reach into yet another time. A fascinating, genre-subverting historical novel.”

—C
OLUM
M
C
C
ANN
, author of
Let the Great World Spin

“Taylor Polites’s
The Rebel Wife
is the love child of William Faulkner and Margaret Mitchell and sister to charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘Yellow Wallpaper.’ A gripping Look at Reconstruction-era Alabama through the mind of one flawed, desperate woman.”

—L
ENORE
H
ART
, author of
The Raven’s Bride
and
Becky

“Taylor Polites’s extraordinary novel has all the qualities of a southern Gothic but is so very much more. This brilliant new writer has taken an age-old genre and turned it on its head. . . . In a nail-biting tour de force, Taylor Polites has brought the 1870s to life before our eyes with impeccable research and attention to detail. This is a book that exposes ancient myths and will endure and be talked about for years to come.”

—K
AYLIE
J
ONES
, author of
Lies My Mother Never Told Me

“
The Rebel Wife
takes us to the time when one who suffered through the civil War was left to sort through the debris in order to start again. This story hums with suspense. More great discussion for the book clubs!”

—K
ATHLEEN
G
RISSOM
, author of
The Kitchen House

“
The Rebel Wife
bears comparison with flannery o’Connor’s and William faulkner’s prose, with the exception that Polites cherishes few illusions about Lost Causes. The failure of Reconstruction meant the deferral of full rights for the former slaves for a full century. This stunning debut novel looks without flinching at one of the enduring shames of our American history, in prose that will linger long after you close its pages.”

—D
AVID
P
OYER
, author of
That Anvil of Our Souls
and
The Towers

BRIMMING WITH ATMOSPHERE

AND EDGY SUSPENSE,
THE REBEL WIFE

PRESENTS A YOUNG WIDOW TRYING

TO SURVIVE IN THE VIOLENT

WORLD OF RECONSTRUCTION ALABAMA,

WHERE THE OLD GENTILITY

MASKS A CONTINUING WAR FUELED

BY HATRED, TREACHERY, AND

STILL-POWERFUL SECRETS.

A
ugusta Branson was born into antebellum Southern nobility during a time of wealth and prosperity, but now all that is gone, and She is left Standing in the ashes of a broken civilization. When her scalawag husband dies suddenly of a mysterious blood plague, she must fend for herself and her young son. Slowly she begins to wake to the reality of her new life: her social standing is stained by her marriage; she is alone and unprotected in a community that is being destroyed by racial prejudice and violence; the fortune she thought she would inherit does not exist; and the deadly blood fever is spreading fast. Nothing is as she believed, everyone she knows is hiding something, and Augusta needs someone to trust. somehow she must find the truth amid her own illusions about the past and the courage to cross the boundaries of hate, so strong, dangerous, and very close to home.

Using the Southern Gothic tradition to explode literary archetypes like the chivalrous southern gentleman, the good mammy, and the defenseless Southern belle,
The Rebel Wife
shatters the myths that still cling to the antebellum south and creates an unforgettable heroine for our time.

TAYLOR M. POLITES
received an MFA in creative writing from Wilkes University, where he was awarded the Norris Church Mailer Scholarship. A native of Huntsville, Alabama, he now lives in Providence, Rhode Island. You can visit his website at
www.taylormpolites.com
.

MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
·THE SOURCE FOR READING GROUPS ·

JACKET DESIGN BY CHIN YEE LAI
JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS: WOMAN BY RICHARD JENKINS,
BACKGROUND © PLAINPICTURE/RETO PUPPETTI,
HOUSE © VISIONSOFAMERICA/JOE SOHM/GETTY IMAGES
COPYRIGHT © 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER

Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Taylor M. Polites

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition February 2012

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at
www.simonspeakers.com
.

Designed by Jill Putorti

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Polites, Taylor M.
The rebel wife / Taylor M. Polites.
           p. cm.
   1.   abama—Fiction I. Title.
PS3616.O56756 R43 2011
813’.6
                                                       2011007100

ISBN 978-1-4516-2951-4
ISBN 978-1-4516-2953-8 (ebook)

To Kaylie Jones, mentor and friend

Thank you for purchasing this Simon & Schuster eBook.

 

Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, access to bonus content, and info on the latest new releases and other great eBooks from Simon & Schuster.

 

 

 

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

 

Chapter One