Fairfield County - by Délana R a Dameron (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A searching, atmospheric novel that celebrates Southern cowboy culture and the Black people who have always been a part of it, from the acclaimed author of Redwood Court, a Reese's Book Club Pick

A sprawling landscape of sand, red clay, and pine trees, Fairfield County is the only place the Bolton family has ever called home. For over a century, they have been cultivating this land, expertly raising horses to compete in derbies and rodeos, and passing this knowledge on to the next generation.

Dwayne, never quite the cowboy his grandfather envisioned, is the reluctant inheritor of the Bolton legacy. When tragedy strikes and he's orphaned by a barn fire that kills everyone he loves, the pain of this history is almost too much to bear. He maintains the family farm and raises his daughter nearby, but the land is a shell of what it once was, now devoid of the animals that once made the Bolton name legendary.

Nikki, unlike her father, is a burgeoning cowgirl and natural rodeo prodigy with no knowledge of her family history. But through a series of events that threaten to sever father and daughter from the only land they've ever known, Dwayne is forced to confront his past so that Nikki can step into her future.

Fairfield County is at once a breathtaking coming-of-age story, an expansive portrait of a Black Southern family, and a bold reclamation of one of America's most enduring cultural images.

About the Author

DéLana R.A. Dameron is the author of Redwood Court, a Reese's Book Club pick and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. She is also the author of two poetry books, How God Ends Us, selected by Elizabeth Alexander for the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize, and Weary Kingdom, chose by Nikky Finney for the Palmetto Poetry Prize. Dameron's work has appeared in Kweli Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Dameron is also the founder of Saloma Acres, an equestrian and cultural space in her home state of South Carolina, where she resides.