To Save the Man

“In To Save The Man, John Sayles has given us a harrowing story that not only deserves to be read but also reckoned with.” — Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls“Sayles builds narrative tension…it covers a wide range of physical and emotional terrain.” —The New York Times Book Review“(Sayles’s) latest wrenching, masterful novel (is) a virtuosic performance by a gifted storyteller.” —Booklist, STARRED review“Both tender and harrowing, To Save (the) Man demonstrates once again Sayles’s dogged commitment to unearthing the buried truths that contour the ground beneath our feet.” —The Washington Post “…an electrifying and convincing chronicle of resistance among Indigenous students at the Carlisle Industrial School in 1890… . Readers will carry this with them for a long time.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED review“A well-researched study of state-sanctioned bigotry.” —Kirkus Reviews”… an emotional and straight-ahead declaration of the wrongdoings that need to be recalled in order to stop them from ever happening again… . It’s thrilling and complicated, and its prose speaks directly to readers’ hearts and minds. TO SAVE THE MAN will stand as a historical rendering as compelling and profound as KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON.” - The BookReporter“Sayles’s fiction is imbued with real profundities and—sadly–more relevant than ever. He occupies a vital, discrete literary perch.” - CounterPunch“To Save The Man takes us inside the Carlisle School, the most famous of 19th century residential Indian schools, where piously confident white teachers ruled isolated Indian children with a regimented brutality wrapped in good intentions. With kaleidoscopic empathy, John Sayles takes us by turns into the minds of those teachers and of the students whose resistance to bewildering tyranny is both heartbreaking and magnificent. Historically accurate, devoid of sentimentality, beautifully written and structured, To Save The Man is, hands down, the best book I’ve read in years.” —Mary Doria Russell, author of The Sparrow“Set in 1890, the year of the Wounded Knee Massacre, John Sayles’s novel, To Save the Man, is a story of a culture taken. At the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, young Native Americans find themselves having to negotiate the demands of assimilation against the ways of life they’ve always known. A master storyteller, Sayles reminds us of the cost of history on the individual life. This blend of fact and invention makes for an unforgettable read.” —Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Bright Forever

John Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for Passion Fish (1992) and Lone Star (1996), both of which he also directed. He has written eight novels, the most recent being Jamie MacGillivray- The Renegade’s Journey (2023), which was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice.

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