Shadow Country
A New Rendering of the Watson Legend

Winner of the 2008 National Book Award for Fiction Winner of the Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award 2009 Shadow Country is Peter Matthiessens reimagining of the legend of E. J. Watson, the Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw of the wild Florida frontier. Vividly capturing the American hinterlands at the turn of the twentieth century, it traces the story of Watson through eyewitness perspectives as he drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him. Originally written as three separate, acclaimed novels, Shadow Country is Matthiessens bold new distillation of his monumental work. Tightened and brilliantly rewritten throughout, he has collapsed the time frame while deepening the insights and motivations of his characters, achieving his original vision of the Watson trilogy.