A Moment in the Sun

Gold fever blazes up the Yukon, yellow headlines crackle from Hearst and Pulitzer’s New York, and the USS Maine hisses into a Cuban harbor—sparking the 1898 war that catapults America onto the global stage in John Sayles’s panoramic epic A Moment in the Sun. Sayles sweeps you from the white-supremacist coup scorching Wilmington, North Carolina, to the steamy jungles where Filipino freedom fighter Diosdado Concepcíon ambushes new colonizers; he marches beside Royal Scott, an African-American infantryman battling Jim Crow abroad and at home; and he trails hungry dreamer Hod Brackenridge through boomtown mud in search of Yukon gold that glitters like false dawn. Mark Twain fires satirical broadsides at rising imperial greed, while the chill shadow of President McKinley’s assassin stalks glittering Gilded-Age avenues. With prose that thunders like a cavalry charge, Sayles detonates myths of Manifest Destiny and lays bare entwined fights for Racial Justice, Economic Justice, and Political Justice that still ripple today. The novel’s crackling detail and urgent heartbeat invite readers to stand where continents shift and decide whether empire’s momentary blaze can outshine the stubborn ember of freedom. Tap the Save to List button to bookmark this title, or tap the External Link button to view purchase and rental options.