Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country

Keith Huneycutt (Florida Southern College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2008

Places

United States (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Shadow Country (2008), a three-book, nearly nine-hundred page revision of Peter Matthiessen’s Watson trilogy, retells the story of Edgar J. Watson (1855–1910), a South Carolina native who became a successful planter and reputed killer in the Ten Thousand Islands area of southwest Florida at the turn of the twentieth century. Little is indisputable about the historical Edgar Watson, but Matthiessen pieced together fact, rumour, and legend to create a rich fictional account of Watson’s life and of the community in which he lived.

The Prologue of Shadow Country boldly reveals the bloody conclusion to Edgar Watson’s life on October 24, 1910, when a group of Watson’s neighbours meet him as his boat reaches the s…

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2928 words

Citation: Huneycutt, Keith. "Shadow Country". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 January 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=32152, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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