Gigi Amateau

Come August, Come Freedom Gigi Amateau

In a time of post-Revolutionary fervor in Richmond, Virginia, an imposing twenty-five-year-old slave named Gabriel-known for his courage and intellect-plotted a rebellion involving thousands of African- American freedom seekers armed with refashioned pitchforks and other implements of Gabriel's blacksmith trade. The revolt would be thwarted by a confluence of fierce weather and human betrayal, but Gabriel retained his dignity to the end. History knows little of Gabriel's early life-but here, author Gigi Amateau imagines a childhood shaped by a mothers devotion, a father's passion for liberation, and a friendship with a white master's son who later proved cowardly and cruel. She gives vibrant life to Gabriel's love for his wife-to-be, Nanny, a slave women whose freedom he worked tirelessly, and futilely, to buy. Interwoven with original documents, this poignant, illuminating novel gives a personal face to a remarkable moment in history.