Publisher, Simon & Schuster Audioworks (September 2005)

Listen to an audio clip NOTE: You will need RealPlayer Basic to listen. It's FREE !

Listen to a Windows Media audio clip.

A magnificent storyteller with vast imaginative range, Anita Diamant gave voice to the silent women of the Old Testament in The Red Tent. Now, in her third novel, she brings to vivid life an early New England world that history has forgotten.

Set on Cape Ann in the early 1800s, The Last Days of Dogtown is peopled by widows, orphans, spinsters, scoundrels, whores, free Africans, and "witches." Among the inhabitants of Dogtown is 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.

This is a story of hardship and resilience -- and an extraordinary re-creation of an untold chapter of early American life. With a keen ear for language and profound compassion for her characters, Diamant has created her most moving and powerful story.

About the Author: Anita Diamant is a prize-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine and Parenting. She is the author of the national bestselling novels Good Harbor and The Red Tent, which was named Book Sense Book of the Year. She has also written a collection of essays, Pitching My Tent, and six nonfiction books about contemporary Jewish practice. She lives in Massachusetts.