Langston Cane V is thirty-eight, divorced and childless, and has just been fired for sabotaging a government official’s speech. The eldest son of a white mother and prominent black father, Langston feels more acutely than ever the burden of his illustrious family name. After a run-in with his father in Oakville, Langston takes off for Baltimore, where he embarks on a remarkable quest to uncover his family’s past—and his own sense of self.
At once elegant and sensuous, wry and witty, Any Known Blood slips effortlessly from the slave trade of 19th-century Virginia to the modern, predominantly white suburbs of Oakville, Ontario—once a final stop on the Underground Railroad. Rich in historical detail, Any Known Blood is an engrossing tale about one man’s attempt to find himself through unearthing and giving voice to those who came before him.
LAWRENCE HILL is the award-winning and internationally bestselling author of The Book of Negroes, which was made into a six-part TV mini-series, and The Illegal, which won CBC’s Canada Reads and was a #1 national bestseller. His previous novels Some Great Thing and Any Known Blood also became national bestsellers. Hill’s non-fiction work includes Blood: The Stuff of Life, the subject of his 2013 Massey Lectures, and Black Berry, Sweet Juice, a memoir about growing up black and white in Canada. Lawrence Hill has volunteered with Crossroads International, the Black Loyalist Heritage Society, Book Clubs for Inmates and the Ontario Black History Society. A professor of creative writing at the University of Guelph, Lawrence Hill lives with his family in Hamilton, Ontario, and Woody Point, Newfoundland.