The Purchase
CBC Books | Posted: February 16, 2017 4:18 PM | Last Updated: July 16, 2018
Linda Spalding
In 1798, Daniel Dickinson, a young Quaker father and widower, leaves his home in Pennsylvania to establish a new life. He sets out with two horses, a wagonful of belongings, his five children, a 15-year-old orphan wife, and a few land warrants for his future homestead. When Daniel suddenly trades a horse for a young slave, Onesimus, it sets in motion a struggle in his conscience that will taint his life forever, and a chain of events that lead to two murders. (From McClelland & Stewart)
The Purchase won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 2012.
From the book
Daniel looked over at the daughter who sat where a wife should sit. Cold sun with a hint of snow. The new wife rode behind him like a stranger while the younger children huddled together, coughing and clenching their teeth. The wind shook them and the wagon wounded the road with its weight and the river gullied along to one side in its heartless way. It moved east and north while Daniel and all he had in the world went steadily the other way, praying for fair game and tree limbs to stack up for shelter. "We should make camp while it's light," said the daughter, who was thirteen years old and holding the reins. But Daniel wasn't listening. He heard a wheel grating and the river gullying. He heard his father — the memory of that lost, admonishing voice — but he did not hear his daughter, who admonished in much the same way.
From The Purchase by Linda Spalding ©2012. Published by McClelland & Stewart.