Snakeskin Road
Snakeskin Road is a slave narrative, a story about faith in humanity despite hostile circumstances, following the journey of Jennifer Harrison as she escapes the Southeastern Desert and tries to reach her mother in Chicago in the year 2044. Jennifer is carrying her unborn child and protecting Mazy Ellis, a teenager that has been left in her care. Along the way, the two women are trapped in a refugee camp in Birmingham, Alabama and sold by a guia to buyers in Cairo and St. Louis.
Snakeskin Road refers to the ever-changing route guias use when transporting their human cargo from the Southeastern Desert to slave auctions in the Midwestern Free Zones. If the government closes down one section, then the guias shed that part of the road like a snakeskin and create a new path to travel. The road is also travelled by bounty hunters such as Rosser Lewis. He’s been searching for Jennifer and Mazy for months, but they remain just beyond his reach.
To find out more about Snakeskin Road, please visit the James Braziel Website.
The Georgia Center for the Book has named Snakeskin Road one of the books all Georgians should read for 2010. Snakeskin Road has also been shortlisted for the 2010 Townsend Prize, longlisted for the 2010 British Fantasy Awards, and is one of Locus Magazine’s Best of 2009.