Azariah's Prayer

Spring 1789: two men from the Deep South arrive in New York City, where the new federal government has just assembled. Neither Edmund Telfair nor his black manservant Abednego has ever been more than two days' journey away from Savannah-or more than a few hours away from each other. Together they play politics by day . . . and lovers by night. But they enter this new world, with its vibrant African-American community and glittering "Republican Court," only to discover the corrosive...
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Spring 1789: two men from the Deep South arrive in New York City, where the new federal government has just assembled. Neither Edmund Telfair nor his black manservant Abednego has ever been more than two days' journey away from Savannah-or more than a few hours away from each other. Together they play politics by day . . . and lovers by night. But they enter this new world, with its vibrant African-American community and glittering "Republican Court," only to discover the corrosive impact of a past that follows them-a past from which slaveholder and enslaved both reap a harvest of betrayal sown in the rice fields and battlefields of revolutionary Georgia. The freed slave Aaron's chance encounter with the two strangers rekindles a secret vengeance against the Telfair family. Aided by the skillful manipulation of unsuspecting characters and unexpected opportunities, his plan ultimately converts Abednego into the rebellious "Azariah." Edmund and Azariah's relationship unravels against the backdrop of government crises, political maneuvering, and a city rapidly breaking free of its colonial past. When Edmund confronts the truth of Aaron's secret by revealing a secret of his own, Azariah's prayer turns into a curse that puts their own idyllic past forever out of reach. Flashbacks and alternating narrative voices reveal parallel versions of perception and memory, while actual historical documents tell the violent climax.