The Wished-For Country

by Wayne Karlin

The Wished For Country is set during the founding period of the Maryland colony, during the mid-17th century. The novel focuses on the entwined stories of James Hallam, a carpenter and indentured servant; Ezekiel, an African slave brought to Maryland from Barbados; and Tawzin, a Piscataway Indian, kidnapped to England when a child, and now back in America. While Hallam goes on to become a soldier and a player in the politics of the Maryland colony,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1880684896
• ISBN13: 9781880684894
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Curbstone Press
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Wayne Karlin Writes Like A Dream

I wish I could put Wayne Karlin's "The Wished-for Country" into the hands of every individual who loves reading beautifully crafted, poetic fiction. That said, Karlin's novel about the early days of Colonial Maryland is not entirely fiction. He was inspired by an actual written account of an early white settler, Father Andrew White, S.J., and has placed an excerpt of this account and others among his own chapters, which he calls "Songs". These "Songs" have their own true life in Karlin's poetic crafting-- it is impossible to tell where documented history ends and the fictional story begins.This is an excellent book for those interested in exploring different perspectives on the English colonization of Maryland, for "The Wished-for Country" is told by many different narrators, including a Piscataway, a Jew, an English settler, an African slave, and even a hawk and a lion. Also of interest is the the motley, multi-racial "Wesort" group at the center of the novel's plot.For those who like seeing their characters come back in other novels, fans of "A Wished-for Country" will find decendents of the Hallam family in Karlin's novel "Prisoners"."A Wished-for Country" is now my favorite novel. When I reached the last page I turned back to page one and began again.

New American Heroes

Karlin's characters bring to life the messy moral and political landscape of the 'New World.' The murky waters of the Southern Maryland swamps are an all-too-appropriate analogy for the confusion of natives and settlers in negotiating an unstable environment. The dangerous and unpredictable setting underscores the violence humans turn on each other in any/every setting, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Jacob Lombroso's band of misfits, the Wesorts, represents a circle of individuals who wish to live outside the existing social boundaries. This tale of their journey to establish a place for themselves amidst the turmoil and violence around them creates an alternative to traditional narratives of "the first Americans" by introducing previously marginalized voices: a slave, an indentured servant, an English girl stolen from her settler parents and raised by Indians, and so on. One of the unique accomplishments of this book is to reinforce the violence of the religious paradigm by which our country was established. Readers find religion-both in America and in Lombroso's recollections of Europe-just as terrorizing a force as greed. Some of the most powerful passages-such as the journey of the dying Tyac's soul to the afterlife-emphasize the horrifying rape of souls which accompanied the Christians' rape of the land. Tawzin, a Piscataway Indian captured in his youth by the Catholics and returned to his homeland by Lombroso, best describes Christian conversion methods: "You place me in the dark, you take everything away from me, and in the dark and terrible emptiness in which you leave me, you put in Christ." To me the book's most shining 'moment' is the presence of Cabbalist Jacob Lombroso and his obstinate resistance to the territorializing force of Christianity. ("God save me from your love," he tells a meddling priest.) His unstinting pursuit of tolerance and freedom for himself and his new community constitutes more of a heroicism to this reader than the greedy zeal of America's traditionally recognized forefathers. [The book mentions historic record of many of the characters, Lombroso included, and I'm not sure exactly where Karlin departs from the record.) America's praise for the religiously persecuted in Europe who 'found refuge' in the New World always overlooks the persecution that the 'persecuted' inflicted on others when they got here. That Karlin's novel reminds readers of the territorializing instinct of religion is one of its greatest strengths, suggesting a natural place for it within the emerging Post-Colonial 'tradition' in literature. At the same time, this is in many ways a utopian novel, since it focuses on the determination of these early Americans--in the face of unending opposition-- to live in harmony.

What it was like to live in the New World centuries past

The Wished-For Country is an original and inherently interesting novel by Wayne Karlin which is set in Maryland during early Colonial times, and opens in the year 1634. The interwoven tales of a carpenter, an indentured servant, an African slave and a Piscataway Indian who was kidnapped to England as a child blend in this evocative and masterful recreation of what it was like to live in the New World centuries past. The Wished-For Country is a superbly written, thoroughly engaging, and highly recommended historical novel.