Author of the #1 best-seller The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill is a writer of immense talent—and his literary reputation grows with each new work. Canadian Langston Cane V finds his writing career (and, indeed, his life) in stasis until inspired by his mentor to write about an ancestor who purportedly died fighting alongside John Brown at Harpers Ferry. Traveling to Baltimore, the latter-day Cane delves into history and in so doing awakens to new possibilities.