Once a young Ghanaian emigrant of outstanding promise, Samuel Tyne is languishing as a low-level civil servant in Calgary. When he unexpectedly inherits a mansion in what was formerly an all-black town, he seems to have been offered that fabled second chance, even if his wife and twin daughters are profoundly—and strangely—set against it. But as his desire for success intensifies, Samuel Tyne finds his life disintegrating around him.

The author

Esi Edugyan is the award-winning and internationally bestselling author of Washington Black, a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Man Booker Prize, and winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize; Half-Blood Blues, a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Man Booker Prize, and winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize; and The Second Life of Samuel Tyne. She is also the author of Dreaming of Elsewhere, which is part of the Kreisel Memorial Lecture Series, and Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling, the 2021 CBC Massey Lectures. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.