The Last Days of Dogtown

A New York Times BestsellerThe bestselling author of The Red Tent resurrects an entirely forgotten sector of society in an engrossing book packed with some of the most vivid characters in recent fiction.The Last Days of Dogtown is a stunning novel about a small group of eccentrics and misfits, struggling in a harsh, isolated landscape only fifty miles north of Boston, yet a world away.Among the inhabitants of Dogtown are Black Ruth, an African woman who dresses as a man and works as a stone mason; Mrs. Stanley, an imperious madam whose grandson, Sammy, comes of age in her rural brothel; Oliver Younger, who survives a miserable childhood at the hands of a very strange aunt; and Cornelius Finson, a freed slave whose race denies him everything. At the center of it all is Judy Rhines, a fiercely independent soul, deeply lonely, who nonetheless builds a life for herself and inspires those around her to become more generous and tolerant themselves.Anita Diamant lives in West Newton, Massachusetts.