{"id":79,"date":"2014-08-04T18:41:10","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T22:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/?page_id=79"},"modified":"2016-03-15T10:34:15","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T14:34:15","slug":"about-provenance-a-novel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/?page_id=79","title":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Unforgettable Tale of a Family’s Determination to Live “Undefined” by Race"},"content":{"rendered":"
Provenance<\/em> is a sweeping family saga set\u00a0in\u00a0the early 20th century\u2014after the Civil War and before the\u00a0civil rights era\u2014a time when the destiny of a black family had<\/em> to be self-determined. It is an unforgettable tale of the choices and chances that determined men and women took to live the life they imagined for themselves.\u00a0Provenance<\/em> paints a vivid picture of the courage, love, loss, beauty, passion, history and healing that strengthened and preserved American families.<\/h5>\n
Click this link to read an Excerpt<\/strong> from Provenance<\/em><\/a><\/h5>\n

In the tradition of Passing<\/em>,\u00a0Nella Larsen\u2019s seminal classic on race\u00a0and\u00a0The Goldfinch<\/em>, Donna Tartt’s art-infused coming-of-age epic, Donna Drew Sawyer<\/a>\u2019s, Provenance<\/em>, is a tale of triumph despite tragedy. It is the exciting story of a family\u2019s quest to ensure their own destiny during the early 20th century\u2014a fascinating period in African\u00a0American history that is rarely explored in literary fiction. For African American men and women, it was a time when risking everything to take more than society was willing to offer was a daring and often solitary act.<\/p>\n

Hank Whitaker longed for more than a black man in Virginia could have in the early 20th<\/sup> century. When a fateful incident forces him to use his racially ambiguous looks to escape certain death, Hank assumes the identity of the same people who revile him. He never imagined he would fall in love and marry a white woman, but spirited Maggie Bennett changes everything. Now, Hank can never return to being the man he used to be. If the secret of his heritage is revealed he loses everything\u2014his family, his successful business and his life.<\/p>\n

But tragedy strikes again, and Hank is forced to confesses to his wife and 18-year-old son, Lance, that he is really a black man passing as white. The revelation that he is not the privileged scion of the segregated south launches Lance, along with his mother Maggie and his grandmother, Charlotte, on an epic journey.\u00a0Charlotte is running from a past her family knows nothing about. Maggie is reeling from her husband\u2019s secret. She is also desperate to escape prosecution\u2014 interracial marriage is illegal under Virginia\u2019s Racial Integrity Act making Maggie a criminal and her beloved son a bastard, and a Negro, in the heart of the segregated south.<\/p>\n

Like many African Americans, more than 200,000 before World War I, the family flees the U.S. hoping to find freedom in the libert\u00e9, \u00e9galit\u00e9, fraternit\u00e9 of France. Among the wealthy expats in Europe, Lance finds passion and purpose in the frenzied art scene in the City of Light. With World War II on the horizon, the family is forced to return to America\u00a0where their legacy of lies may make happiness an elusive aspiration.<\/p>\n

<\/h5>\n
Provenance Press Release<\/a><\/h5>\n

Provenance<\/em>\u00a0is available in Hardcover, Paperback and eBook formats from:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"amazon.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"barnes-and-noble-online-logo-cropped\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"indiebound<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"Get_it_on_iBooks_Badge_US_1114\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \"Kobo_logo_(2015).svg\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Provenance is a sweeping family saga set\u00a0in\u00a0the early 20th century\u2014after the Civil War and before the\u00a0civil rights era\u2014a time when the destiny of a black family had to be self-determined. It is an unforgettable tale of the choices and chances that determined men and women took to live the life they imagined for themselves.\u00a0Provenance paints […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78517,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-79","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78769,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79\/revisions\/78769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}