Kenan, author of the novel A Visitation of Spirits, began work on Walking on Water six years ago when he set out from New York in a rented car to interview African Americans across the country. He visited communities in Canada and New England that were end points of the Underground Railroad, met with black Mormons in Utah whose ancestors had accompanied Brigham Young, and discovered that much of downtown Anchorage, Alaska, was at one time owned by a black woman. The second half focuses on the South. The finished book will combine oral history with the writer's own impressions. The book's title comes from the story of slaves en route from Africa who commandeered their ship off the coast of Georgia around 1800.
Legend has it that they walked off the ship to an unknown fate.
My efforts have been to see where we are now. Surely not the glamorously coiffed Charles Frazier they've seen in newsmagazines and The New Yorker ads. In the July 28th Newsweek, all was made clear. The grainy dust-jacket photo shows Frazier in conversation with his springer spaniel, his hair tousled and his beard unkempt. The shot was taken by his wife, Katherine, to keep him from being recognized in public.