Durham, David Anthony 1969-

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Durham, David Anthony 1969-

PERSONAL: Born March 23, 1969, in New York, NY; married Gudrun Celia Johnston; children: Maya Calypso, Sage Anthony. Ethnicity: "Afro-Caribbean." Education: University of Maryland Baltimore County, B.A., 1992; University of Maryland College Park, M.F.A., 1996.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Sloan Harris, International Creative Management, 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer and teacher. Baltimore Chesapeake Outward Bound, instructor, 1991–94; University of Maryland College Park, teaching assistant, 1996; Colorado College, teacher, 2001; University of Southern Maine, Stonecoast MFA Program, faculty, 2005–; University of Massachusetts, Amherst, instructor, 2006. Also taught at Zora Neale Hurston/ Richard Wright Foundation's Writer's Week, 2003; California State University, Fresno, distinguished visiting writer, 2003.

AWARDS, HONORS: Dolphin Moon Press Prize, 1991; Malcolm C. Braly Fiction Prize, 1991; Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Fiction Award, 1992; Borders Original Voices selection, 2001, for Gabriel's Story; Black Caucus of the American Library Association First Novel Award, Hurston/Wright Award for debut fiction, Alex Award, and Legacy Award in the Debut Fiction Category, all 2002, all for Gabriel's Story.

WRITINGS:

HISTORICAL NOVELS

Gabriel's Story, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2001.

Walk through Darkness, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2002.

Pride of Carthage: A Novel of Hannibal, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2005.

OTHER

Contributor of short stories to Gumbo: Stories by Black Writers, and to periodicals, including Bartleby, Catalyst, QWF, and Staple: New Writing. Pride of Carthage has been published in Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel, Acacia, which is set in an alternative world.

SIDELIGHTS: "I was born in New York City to parents of Afro-Caribbean ancestry," David Anthony Durham told CA. "I've lived and traveled in the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe. One of my great loves is whitewater kayaking, and I've worked for rafting companies in the southeast, California, and Scotland. As an Outward Bound instructor, I lead extended wilderness courses with youth at-risk populations. Over the years, I've worked as a substitute teacher in Maryland, sold expensive cheese in Portland, tended bar in Edinburgh, prepared sushi at a restaurant in Baltimore, and shoveled horse manure in Eugene—all in the ongoing attempt to experience life and to prepare myself for writing meaningful fiction."

Durham's debut novel, Gabriel's Story, focuses on the coming-of-age journey of its title character, fifteen-year-old Gabriel Lynch, as he struggles to cope with his family's new life in the hardscrabble West. Endangered by racism in post-Civil War Baltimore, Gabriel and his mother, Eliza, and younger brother Ben head west toward the promise of authentic freedom on the plains of Kansas. Resentful at being uprooted from his eastern home, Gabriel craves a life apart from the endless chores and unappreciated labor he sees awaiting him in the West. His dreams of becoming a doctor are plowed under as surely as the topsoil on the family's new Kansas homestead. Making things worse, Eliza, a former slave, has married Solomon, also a former slave. Gabriel barely knows the step-father who waits for them in Kansas.

Farm life turns out to be a great deal harder than the family had anticipated, but "Gabriel's mother and brother buckle down in their new life, determined to make the best of their fresh start," wrote a reviewer in the Christian Science Monitor. "But the hard life of a sod-buster galls Gabriel." Growing more and more distant from the family, Gabriel meets James, an equally restless and unhappy black teen from a nearby town. Gabriel and James find their chance to escape the drudgery of farm life when they meet Marshall Hogg, an immediately likeable, fast-talking, charismatic white cowboy. Hogg is the leader of an impressive-looking band of cowboys, in town to sell horses, and is accompanied by his perpetually mute, ever-present black partner, Caleb. The free-riding life of a cowboy has more appeal to Gabriel and James than does backbreaking farm labor, and they join up as hands with Hogg's crew for a return trip to Texas.

It does not take Gabriel and James long to discover first-hand that Hogg and his group are not the benign, carefree cowpokes they appeared to be. Instead, the two boys have fallen in with a group of murderers, rapists, and horse thieves who wander the plains. "At first the gang's murderous episodes appear motivated by vengeance and score-settling," wrote Maria Russo in the New York Times Book Review, "but soon enough they are killing and raping with merciless abandon."

Gabriel and James are repulsed and terrified by what they see and, by association, participate in. But they cannot leave for fear of retribution by the gang and because of the likelihood of being run to ground by lawmen for their presumed participation in the gang's crimes. The two see little chance of escape from Hogg's vicious influence and psychopathic violence. When Gabriel watches Hogg's gang callously murder an innocent family of Mexicans, Gabriel begins to gather the courage he needs to escape from the gang and return to his family.

Critical reaction to Gabriel's Story was generally positive. John Lowe, writing in the World and I, compared Gabriel's Story to other "remarkable first novels," including The Catcher in the Rye and Look Homeward, Angel. "Rarely, however, have these books been historical novels that speak accurately to essential events in American history," Lowe remarked. "Gabriel's Story, David Anthony Durham's stunning debut novel, is that and much more." Gabriel's Story "gives a poetic voice to a population underrepresented in Western mythology," noted Clay Barbour in the Post and Courier. "Durham has an ancient Israelite's knowledge of the desert, its mirages and badlands, beauty and threat," commented Tom LeClair in Book. "His language is King James plain—and poetic." Gabriel's Story, Russo wrote, "is both artistically impressive and emotionally satisfying, a serious work that heads off in exhilarating directions." A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that while "some readers may be turned off by the violence Gabriel witnesses, all will be impressed by Durham's maturity, skills and lovingly crafted prose." Bonnie Smothers, writing in Booklist, commented that "Durham posits a slant on the settlement of the West that speaks to the essential multicultural character of the nation. Durham is a storyteller touched by an angel." To Lowe, "Gabriel's Story deserves inclusion among the ranks of legendary first novels."

Durham followed Gabriel's Story with Walk through Darkness, the story of two men and their quests. William is a slave who escapes his masters to look for his wife, Dover, who is pregnant, and to find freedom; Morrison is a Scotsman who has come to America to forge a new life in the land of promise. Set just before the Civil War, Walk through Darkness captures the harsh realities of both slavery and the life of immigrants in America.

In a review of Walk through Darkness in Kliatt, Courtney Lewis noted: "The prose is eloquent and the plot moves well." Black Issues Book Review contributor Michaelyn Elder wrote: "Durham does an exceptional job of transporting readers to a time when freedom was not a right accorded many African Americans."

Durham's third book, Pride of Carthage: A Novel of Hannibal, tells of the great Carthaginian military leader and strategist. Durham examines Hannibal's efforts to first provoke a war with Rome and then his historic march on the city. "Durham depicts the great general as a fully rounded, complicated man," wrote Kristine Huntley in Booklist. In a review for the Library Journal, Robert Conroy called the novel "an epic tale well told." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented: "Durham weaves abundant psychological, military and political detail into this vivid account of one of the most romanticized periods of history."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Durham, David Anthony, Gabriel's Story, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2001.

PERIODICALS

Black Issues Book Review, March, 2001, Glenn Townes, review of Gabriel's Story, p. 22; May-June, 2002, Michaelyn Elder, review of Walk through Darkness, p. 42; January-February, 2005, Robert Fleming, review of Pride of Carthage: A Novel of Hannibal and brief profile of author, p. 50.

Book, March, 2001, Tom LeClair, review of Gabriel's Story, p. 74; May-June, 2002, Tom LeClair, review of Walk through Darkness, p. 82.

Booklist, December 15, 2000, Bonnie Smothers, review of Gabriel's Story, p. 788; January 1, 2002, review of Gabriel's Story, p. 761; February 15, 2002, Brad Hooper, review of Gabriel's Story, p. 1005; January 1, 2005, Kristine Huntley, review of Pride of Carthage, p. 813.

Christian Science Monitor, January 25, 2001, "The Rough Ride Home for an African-American Cowboy," p. 18; January 11, 2005, Ron Charles, review of Pride of Carthage.

Dallas Morning News, March 19, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story.

Denver Post, February 11, 2001, "Homeward, Inward—Debut Novel Follows Prodigal Son West," p. H01.

Entertainment Weekly, February 9, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story.

Kansas City Star, March 17, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story; February 15, 2002, review of Walk through Darkness, p. 206; October 15, 2004, review of Pride of Carthage, p. 976.

Kliatt, November, 2003, Courtney Lewis, review of Walk through Darkness, p. 14.

Library Journal, November 1, 2000, Ann Burns and Emily Joy Jones, review of Gabriel's Story, p. 101; March 15, 2002, Ann Fleury, review of Walk through Darkness, p. 108; November 1, 2004, Robert Conroy, review of Pride of Carthage, p. 72.

New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 8, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story.

Newsweek, January 29, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story, p. 65.

New Yorker, March 19, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story.

New York Times, February 6, 2005, Ben Ehrenreich, review of Pride of Carthage.

New York Times Book Review, February 25, 2001, Maria Russo, "Growing up with the Country," p. 7.

Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), April 8, 2001, Clay Barbour, "Debut Novel Beautifully Written," p. 3.

Publishers Weekly, December 4, 2000, review of Gabriel's Story; April 1, 2002, Robert Fleming, "PW Talks to David Anthony Durham," p. 50; April 1, 2002, review of Walk through Darkness, p. 50; October 18, 2004, review of Pride of Carthage, p. 45.

Raleigh News and Observer, February 26, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story; February 20, 2005, Quinn Eli, review of Pride of Carthage.

San Francisco Chronicle, January 28, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story; February 13, 2005, Alan Cheuse, review of The Pride of Carthage.

Time, February 12, 2001, Paul Gray and Walter Kirn, "Tales of the African-American West," p. 88.

USA Today, January 18, 2001, review of Gabriel's Story.

Washington Post, January 8, 2001, Paul Spillenger, "First Novels, Lasting Lessons," p. C5; March 30, 2005, Tracy Lee Simmons, review of Pride of Carthage, p. C04.

World and I, August, 2001, John Lowe, "Exodus, Race, and the American West," p. 218.