Set in the early 1600s, Swann’s novel traces the life of young John Crowe, an Englishman who rises from humble beginnings in Cambridgeshire, to a rough and tumble life of crime in London, before settling as an indentured servant in fledgling Jamestown. There he enmeshes himself with the local Powhatan, eventually being inducted into the namesake huskanaw, complete with a legendarily dangerous initiation ceremony. A novel of historical and cultural import, emotional and imaginative, Huskanaw (MadHat Press) culminates in the rise of Opechancanough in 1622.
