One novel on the list:Bright and Distant Shores by Dominic SmithRead about another title on the list.
About Bright and Distant Shores, from the publisher:
They were showing the savages on the rooftop—that was the word at the curbstone.Learn more about Bright and Distant Shores at Dominic Smith's website.
Dominic Smith’s third novel—Bright and Distant Shores—is set amid the skyscrapers of 1890s Chicago and the far-flung islands of the South Pacific.
Chicago First Equitable has won the race to construct the world’s tallest building and its president, Hale Gray, hits upon a surefire way to make it an enduring landmark: to establish on the roof an exhibition of real-life “savages.” He sponsors a South Seas voyage to collect not only weaponry and artefacts, but also “several natives related by blood” for the company’s rooftop spectacle. Caught up in this scheme are two orphans—Owen Graves, an itinerant trader from Chicago’s South Side, and Argus Niu, a mission houseboy in the New Hebrides. At the cusp of the twentieth century, the expedition forces a collision course between the tribal and the civilized, and between two young men plagued by their haunting pasts.
The Page 69 Test: Bright and Distant Shores.
--Marshal Zeringue
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