Night Flyer - (Significations) by Tiya Miles

About the Book

"From the National-Book-Award-winning author of All That She Carried, an intimate and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand. Harriet Tubman is, if surveys are to be trusted, one of the ten most famous Americans ever born, and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she's a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero-the woman who, despite being barely five-feet tall, illiterate, and suffering from a brain injury, managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others North to freedom, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some 750 people without loss of life. You could almost say she's America's Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood. Tiya Miles's extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman's life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman's surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes the more palpable the more we understand it-a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles. Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path"--

Book Synopsis

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography - A Washington Post Notable Book - One of Smithsonian Magazine's Ten Best History Books of the Year - One of AAIHS's Best Black History Books of 2024

"Though broad strokes of Tubman's story are widely known, Miles probes deeper, examining her inner life, faith and relationships with other enslaved Black women to paint a deeper, more vibrant portrait of a historical figure whose mythic status can sometimes overshadow her humanity." -The New York Times

From the National Book Award-winning author of All That She Carried, an intimate and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand

Harriet Tubman is among the most famous Americans ever born and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she's a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero. Despite being barely five feet tall, unable to read, and suffering from a brain injury, she managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others north to freedom without loss of life, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some seven hundred people. You could almost say she's America's Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood.

Tiya Miles's extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman's life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman's surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes more palpable the more we understand it--a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles. Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path.

Review Quotes

"Stellar . . . spectacular . . . Night Flyer is a triumph of Black women's studies, a powerful representation of what Black studies--an interdisciplinary field ranging far wider than history alone -- can offer our understanding of the past. Read it to learn about Tubman. Read it to see what Black women's studies can do." --Nell Irvin Painter, The Washington Post

"Groundbreaking...Through Tiya Miles' meticulous research and an unwavering focus on Tubman's humanity, Night Flyer has transformed a fantastical figure from a bygone time into an accessible, modern-day inspiration." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"In Night Flyer, Miles . . . resurrects Tubman's spiritual life, considering her alongside not only intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass but also Black evangelists of the era. The little we know about Tubman's motivations comes robed in Scripture and prayer--blinding garments for modern eyes, but Miles helps us see." --The New Yorker, Best Books of the Week

"In her deep examination of the world in which Tubman lived, Miles winds through the elusive history and the awesome mythology to find a real life figure more extraordinary than we ever knew before." --CBS Sunday Morning

"[Night Flyer], like All That She Carried, is not an academic study of nineteenth-century Black history but a moving account of Tubman's intellectual life . . . It reminds us of the redemptive possibilities of patriotism and religious belief, ideologies that today are too often associated with the reactionary rather than the radical." --The New Yorker

"Well-researched and endlessly readable, Night Flyer invites readers to experience the many sides of Harriet Tubman, most of which we've not fully understood until now. Miles focuses on her mysticism, knowledge of the natural world and boundless dedication to truth and liberation." --Ms. Magazine (Best Books of June)

"The lyrical biography we'll need before Tubman -- already more myth than person -- begins gracing the $20 bill, starting in 2030." --The Chicago Tribune

"This book finds beauty in history's unanswerable questions." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"Night Flyer adds needed texture to Tubman's historical caricature." --Boston Globe

"An innovative vision ... Through Tiya Miles' meticulous research and an unwavering focus on Tubman's humanity, Night Flyer has transformed a fantastical figure from a bygone time into an accessible, modern-day inspiration." --Atlanta Journal Constitution

"With originality and flair, [Miles] sheds new light on Tubman's remarkable story by setting her deeply in the context of her faith and within the natural world that offered her shelter and succour. ... Miles brings Tubman to vivid and rounded life." --Financial Times

"Miles is one of our greatest living historians and a beautiful writer to boot . . . As in all her work, Miles fleshes out the complexity, humanity, and social and emotional world of her subject." --The Millions, Most Anticipated

"A world-building enterprise, with a novel's sensitivity and a poet's sensibility rooted both in Tubman's daily life and in her more mystical inclinations." --American Scholar

"In her trademark deeply researched, thoughtful and exquisite prose, Miles successfully avoids popular depictions of Tubman as a superwoman 'prepackaged' . . . With Night Flyer, Tiya Miles seems to transmit the weight of her subject's hand and heart." --Bookpage (starred review)

"Miles goes beyond standard biographies by foregrounding two aspects of Tubman's life that have rarely been analyzed together: her religious faith and her deep understanding of ecology . . . Miles' thoughtful engagement with Tubman's contemporaries allows her to place the icon within a proud lineage of Black female mystics and preachers. . . . A truly unique analysis." --Booklist

"National Book Award winner Miles chronicles and contextualizes Tubman's work to lead enslaved people to freedom in the North, spotlighting her subject's spiritual conviction and naturalistic know-how. . . . A notable, discerning contribution to the understanding of an American legend." --Kirkus

"Drawing on and extending accounts of Harriet Tubman's life and memories, Tiya Miles's Night Flyer situates Tubman as a thinker, dreamer, and doer. An intellectual, physical, and spiritual force embedded in multiple worlds--ecological, geographical, familial, dream, and spiritual--acquiring and acting on knowledge drawn from each of them. Beautifully conceived and written, Night Flyer speaks powerfully of the worlds Tubman navigated and refused, and to our own perilous times." --Christina Sharpe, author of Ordinary Notes

"Night Flyer anchors Harriet Tubman to the faith and ferocity that has made her beloved by generations of Americans. Tiya Miles continues to captivate readers with her luminous prose, her riveting attention to detail, and her continuing genius to bring the past to life. With imaginative engagement, she has offered us a window onto the world inhabited by Tubman and her people, and its crucial legacy for us today." --Catherine Clinton, author of Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom

"Transcending the boundaries of literary genre and academic discipline, Miles provides a brilliant meditation on the many worlds of Harriet Tubman--environmental, social, interior. Night Flyer is also a lyrical praise song to Tubman and those Black women preachers who melded religious faith with physical courage to fight for the liberation of Black bodies, minds, and spirits. A stunning achievement." --Jacqueline Jones, author of No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era

About the Author

Tiya Miles is the Michael Garvey Professor of History at Harvard University, the author of five prizewinning works on the history of slavery and early American race relations, and a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship recipient. She was the founder and director of the Michigan-based ECO Girls program, and she is the author of the National Book Award-winning, New York Times bestselling All That She Carried. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.