Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award

"The Chaneysville Incident rivals Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon as the best novel about the black experience in America since Ellison's Invisible Man." -- Christian Science Monitor

The legends say something happened in Chaneysville. The Chaneysville Incident is the powerful story of one man's obsession with discovering what that something was a quest that takes the brilliant and bitter young Black historian John Washington back through the secrets and buried evil of his heritage.

Returning home to care for and then bury his father's closest friend and his own guardian, Old Jack Crawley, John comes upon the scant records of his family's proud and tragic history, which he drives himself to reconstruct and accept. This is the story of John's relationship with his family, the town, and the woman he loves; and also between the past and the present, between oppression and guilt, hate and violence, love and acceptance.

The legends say something happened in Chaneysville. The Chaneysville Incident is the powerful story of one man's obsession with discovering what that something was--a quest that takes the brilliant and bitter young black historian John Washington back through the secrets and buried evil of his heritage. Returning home to care for and then bury his father's closest friend and his own guardian, Old Jack Crawley, he comes upon the scant records of his family's proud and tragic history, which he drives himself to reconstruct and accept. This is the story of John's relationship with his family, the town, and the woman he loves; and also between the past and the present, between oppression and guilt, hate and violence, love and acceptance.

Bradley, David

David Bradley is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon and the author of South Street and The Chaneysville Incident, the latter of which won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1982 and was a finalist for the National Book Award. The novel also earned Bradley an Academy Award for literature. Bradley has published essays, book reviews, and interviews in periodicals and newspapers including Esquire, Redbook, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the New Yorker.