Liberty Landing
by Gail Vida Hamburg
Narrator: Colleen MacMahon
Length: 11 hours and 30 minutes
Publisher: Mirare Press
Released: June 25th 2018
Genre: Historical Fiction
Liberty Landing - A Love Letter to the American Experiment by Gail Vida Hamburg
At this moment in American life, hyperpartisan politics has all but riven the country in two, identity politics and racism have found comfort and embrace, the article of faith, “America is a nation of immigrants,” has been erased from immigration services, and the only binding narrative we appear to have is a love of granite countertops and stainless steel appliances Add to this, a recent study which found that 75% of Americans don’t have friends of other races. How will we ever know our fellow Americans, or view them as fully human with hopes, dreams, and fears of their own? How will we identify with their longing for love and home, or recognize their dreams for their children, or understand their vision for a safe future? While most immigrant fiction is about a particular ethnic group, the one an author hails from, my novel, Liberty Landing, is about a multiracial, polycultural American community. Its protagonist, Gabriel Khoury is a Palestinian American, a Christian with ancestral roots in the biblical Galilee, where Jesus once walked. Angeline Lalande, a descendant of the first slaves brought to French Louisiana in the 1700s, is Black and French, a Creole. Bruce Halliday is a master beer brewer from Geelong Australia who comes to an America that had resonated with him through country songs. Tina Trang is a Vietnamese American, who found a haven in America after the fall of Saigon.Liberty Landing is about the American Experiment and American Experience, about who we once were, who we used to be, and who we really are. There is great beauty in the founding of America and in its tapestry. We are individual yarns, warp and weft indispensable to the whole arras. The audiobook of Liberty Landing is read by the English actress and voice talent, Colleen McMahon. She adds an essential dimension to the written novel by presenting America to Americans in a foreigner’s voice, to offer an oblique look at what is familiar, to make the commonplace interesting, to remind readers of the remarkable in what is often taken for granted.
Liberty Landing -- a 2016 Finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction -- narrates the American Experience of the 21st century through the story of a polycultural group of natives, immigrants, and refugees in Azyl Park—a town in the Midwest, the Heartland. After Angeline Lalande, a journalist and historian, unearths the real meaning of the name, “Azyl,” conferred on the town in the 1800s by immigrant-hating politicians, the town elders begin the act of renaming it. During the course of the renaming, we meet the intriguing denizens of the town--survivors, strugglers, and strivers of every race and nationality; see the intersection of their lives, and the ways they find home, heaven, and hell in each other. We learn about the singular journeys that brought them to Azyl Park—a place that both transforms them and is transformed by them. The larger story of the American Experiment is told through the personal story of Alexander Hamilton, the essential immigrant among the Founding Fathers, as Angeline writes a book about him. By the end of the novel, after Azyl Park is renamed, each of the characters has lost or found something essential. Liberty Landing is about the personal and the political, family and loss, memory and migration, finding new love and a new home, and about history and the American Experiment. Seminal moments of the American Experience figure in this literary and historical fiction. Inspired by John Dos Passos’ USA Trilogy about early 20th century Americans, Liberty Landing is a sweeping, lush, layered saga, set in a vibrant community, with characters marked by neuroses, flaws, secrets, unthinkable pasts, warmth, humor, vulnerability, and humanity. Liberty Landing is Gail Vida Hamburg's love letter to the American Experiment--the first in a trilogy.
Gail Vida Hamburg is an award-winning American journalist, author, and museum storyist. She is the author of The Edge of the World (Mirare Press, 2007), a novel about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives. A nominee for the 2008 James Fenimore Cooper Prize, it is a frequent text in undergraduate post- colonial studies, war studies, and creative writing programs. Born in Malaysia, she spent her teens and twenties in England before migrating to the United States. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Literature and Creative Writing from Bennington Writers Seminars at Bennington College, Vermont. Liberty Landing, a finalist for the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, is the first volume in her trilogy about the American Experience and her love letter to the great American Experiment. She lives in Chicago—the setting for Liberty Landing
Colleen MacMahon is an actress, writer and painter. She trained at Arts Educational School (Hertfordshire) and subsequently qualified as a Speech and Drama teacher, following which she has combined her performing career with directing, writing and mentoring. She has won awards for her short story writing and is currently working on her debut novel. Colleen does much of her Narration and Voiceover work from her home studio in the beautiful south west of England, where she lives with her partner and their two dogs.
Music Playlist for Liberty Landing by Gail Vida Hamburg
Throughout the writing of my novel, Liberty Landing, over a period of seven years, I listened to music for inspiration. The songs I listened to most, and consistently, while writing Liberty Landing were the two gorgeous albums of Clara May, the indie prog-rock studio band from Chicago. The beautiful songs from Hush and American Desi became songs that I associated with characters in my novel. The songs, like my novel, speak of migration, memory, loss, grief, finding new love and a new home, and about America.
Music is a recurring theme in the novel. American country music transports Bruce Halliday to a world beyond Australia, and ultimately to an America already familiar to him. His favorite song, a personal anthem about finding peace and freedom from pain, is Waylon Jennings’ song, Luckenbach, Texas. He is able to find common ground with other characters in the novel through music. The salonnière, Andrea Cristos, is a repressed woman who loves French torch songs and ballads. One particular song, Éblouie par la nuit' (Dazzled by the Night) by Zaz breaks her completely open. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDcgOpUp2nc
More on Clara May: www.claramay.com/
More on Liberty Landing, the novel: www.goodreads.com/book/show/382171…-liberty-landing
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