Blood at the Root

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Some stories are predators, rather than prey.

College student Christopher Fairchild, the son of a white billionaire, disappears, and is next seen being tortured in a video that surfaces online. When it comes to light that he planned the incident as a sacrifice of atonement for America’s racial sins, the news detonates a bomb that rips through a country already rife with demonstrations and social unrest.

Blood at the Root tracks the fallout through a universe populated by drug dealers, priests, police officers, and civilians. With the city on the precipice of chaos, these individuals must go to extremes in the name of self-preservation.

Humble in the face of the magnitude and complexity of the violence he confronts, Darrell questions rather than proclaims, conjuring images with a poetic intensity that renders Blood at the Root an incendiary and gripping novel of power, pain, fear, and triumph.

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Quotes From the Novel

“On a cold winter’s night on the streets of the South Bronx, the white son of a billionaire is chained naked to an outdoor cage, where he is beaten and tattooed by onlookers. Following the stories of over a dozen characters—including a cop, a rapper, a tattoo artist, a homeless man, and a reporter among many others—the novel unravels the mystery of why the son of a billionaire has subjected himself to such violence. Equal parts Quentin Tarantino and Paul Beatty, Blood at the Root is a sharp-witted social satire that takes unflinching aim at race and class privilege in contemporary America. In a novel where countless small but forceful stories constitute the book’s meaning, Blood at the Root reveals that it is ultimately the spectacle of racial violence that truly unifies us.”

Justin Gifford

Associate Professor of English, University of Nevada, Reno; Author of Pimping Fictions: African American Crime Literature and the Untold Story of Black Pulp Publishing and Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim

“Ciahnan Darrell’s debut novel, A Lifetime of Men (2020), conveyed a strong sense of gender inequities in its gripping narrative of feisty women ensnared in the dark realities of social structures. Blood at the Root is similarly imbued with a sharp awareness of racial injustices and complexities. This timely and provocative novel poses incomplete and impossible questions, allowing the answers to dissolve, one into the other in a dialogical frame. Calling upon thirty-three distinct voices, Darrell explores the torsions of power and representation that shape race discourses in our society, offering neither resolution nor summary, but rather allowing these diverse voices to testify to the durable sway of racialized narratives. Audacious in its scope, meticulous in its construction, and relentless in its disavowal of its own authority, the novel is by turns shocking, insightful, offensive, humorous, and tender—an excellent catalyst for a visceral conversation.”

Amritjit Singh

Langston Hughes Professor Emeritus, Ohio University

“Ciahnan Darrell’s debut novel, A Lifetime of Men (2020), conveyed a strong sense of gender inequities in its gripping narrative of feisty women ensnared in the dark realities of social structures. Blood at the Root is similarly imbued with a sharp awareness of racial injustices and complexities. This timely and provocative novel poses incomplete and impossible questions, allowing the answers to dissolve, one into the other in a dialogical frame. Calling upon thirty-three distinct voices, Darrell explores the torsions of power and representation that shape race discourses in our society, offering neither resolution nor summary, but rather allowing these diverse voices to testify to the durable sway of racialized narratives. Audacious in its scope, meticulous in its construction, and relentless in its disavowal of its own authority, the novel is by turns shocking, insightful, offensive, humorous, and tender—an excellent catalyst for a visceral conversation.”

Amritjit Singh

Langston Hughes Professor Emeritus, Ohio University

“Darkly fantastic explorations of race, class, and citizenship arrive dressed in a stark realism that forces us to recognize Darrell’s world as our own. Darrell’s prose compels us to turn the page, almost as anxious to see how and why these events unfold as we are to see just what will happen next. Blood at the Root is a book full of more questions than answers – and that is the point. Race, class, citizenship: these name the great questions of our age and Blood at the Root deepens them all. The novel is a powerful reminder that fiction still speaks its truth.”

Donovan Irven

Associate Editor, Analecta Hermeneutica; Director of Philosophical Praxis, Filo Sofi Arts

Rock Your World

I am proudly partnering with Rock Your World, a program of Creative Visions.

Creative Visions is inspired by the life of Dan Eldon, a 22-year-old Reuters photojournalist who was killed in Somalia in 1993. After his death, his mother and sister, Kathy and Amy Eldon, discovered 20 journals bursting with collages, reflecting his adventurous spirit and his life as a creative activist. Determined to capture Dan’s life as an artist, adventurer, and activist, Kathy and Amy launched Creative Visions in 1998 to support other creative activists.

In the spirit of Dan Eldon, Rock Your World empowers youth to use their voices, innate talents, and the power of media to become changemakers in their communities and the world.

The Rock Your World curriculum is designed to inspire global citizenship while helping students develop 21st century skills. Starting with an understanding of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, students research an issue of choice, then create a multimedia-based advocacy campaign to promote awareness and ignite positive change.

Originally created by teachers for teachers over a decade ago, the Rock Your World curriculum is standards aligned, flexible and free, complete with lessons and downloadable resources.

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I will be donating 10% of my profits from Blood at the Root to Rock Your World. I hope you will join me in supporting this excellent organization.

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