A hypnotizing tale of a daughter's journey into a numinous dream state, and a mother's intuitive pilgrimage of atonement.

Madison Smartt Bell (born August 1, 1957 Nashville, Tennessee) is an American novelist. He is best known for his trilogy of novels about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, including All Souls' Rising, which was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award and the 1996 PEN/Faulkner Award. It also won the 1996 Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best book of the year dealing with matters of race. Bell is a Professor of English at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, where he was Director of the Creative Writing Program from 1998 to 2004. In addition to many books of fiction and non-fiction, he has published essays and reviews in Harper's, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and The Village Voice.