A retired defense attorney in Alabama — a child Holocaust survivor — defends a young Honduran man accused of murder. Their lives, their families, their fates, intertwine.
“So much more than a suspenseful murder mystery. Roy Hoffman makes the reader care deeply about all the verities: courage, justice love. A thrilling novel, with characters as memorable as those of Shakespearean tragedy…I could not put it down.” –Sena Jeter Naslund
“Roy Hoffman casts his net wide in this masterful novel, set on Mobile Bay but reaching to the Netherlands and Honduras as well, all the while looking back to Nazi Germany and staring down the U.S./Mexican border. Hoffman is at the height of his powers.” Elaine Neil Orr
“An extraordinary tale of people desperately trying to connect, trying to make sense out of the senseless, ultimately asking whether true justice is possible in an imperfect world.” Charles Salzberg
“[A] fast-paced, mesmerizing and incredibly moving contemporary novel about human and civil rights … not only filled with heart-dropping events but complicated characters.” Lee Smith
“Roy Hoffman secures his place alongside the great American writers from the Deep South.” Michael J. Gerhardt
Roy Hoffman
A native of Mobile, Ala., Roy worked as a writer for 20 years in New York City before returning south with his family as a journalist and novelist based in Fairhope, on Mobile Bay. He’s the author of five books, fiction and nonfiction, driven by place, character and story.
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More books by Roy Hoffman
“The author of four novels and two nonfiction collections, Hoffman is that rarest of writers,” writes book critic John Sledge, “a true man of letters equally at home in the realms of the imaginative and the factual.”
Harper Lee, in a rare endorsement, praised “Chicken Dreaming Corn”: “Read this novel to find, from Europe and the past, characters who represent some of the best aspects of our Southern heritage. A story of great appeal in prose lean and clean. Congratulations to Roy Hoffman for his fine work.” Sample Audio Edition
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Book Club Discussion Guides
Get your book group’s conversation going on “The Promise of the Pelican” and other Hoffman books – Read More
Selected Writings
New York Times Essays:
“Remembering to Pray”
“Dancing Across the Generations”
“A Reunion With My Younger Hitchhiking Self”
“An Empty House Where Time Stands Still”
“Tom’s World”
“Greetings from Brooklyn, Alabama”
“My Own Private New York”
“Long Lives the Mockingbird”
“A Contract for Watermelons”
New York Times Op/Ed:
“Leaving Alabama Behind,”
“Spanning the Gulf”
“Two Tons of Morality”
New York Times Book Review:
“Life After Life,”
“If Sons then Heirs,”
“Bitter in the Mouth”
“Between Heaven and Here”
Recalling a Dad, a Sister
“Windows: A Son Remembers”
“An Independent Woman”
Nonfiction storytelling:
“Deliver Us From Evil,” 3-part series
“Beyond the Convent Walls”
“A Day With Honor Flight WWII Veterans”
The Creative Process
“My Unexpected South”
“Why I Write”