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Back to Wando Passo

david payne

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David Payne has been hailed as "the most gifted American novelist of his generation" ( Boston Globe ) and has been likened to "Pat Conroy or perhaps a Southern John Irving" ( Winston-Salem Journal ). Now, in his new novel, Payne introduces us to Ransom Hill, lead singer of a legendary-but-now-defunct indie rock group who has come to South Carolina to turn over a new leaf. A bighearted artist and a bit of a wild man, Ran knows that his wife Claire's patience with him hangs by a frayed thread. After a five-month separation, he's come south from New York City to rejoin her and their two young children at Wando Passo, Claire's inherited family estate, determined to save his marriage, his family, and himself. Back at Wando Passo, though, things don't proceed according to plan. Claire has taken a job teaching at the local music conservatory, where the dean of the faculty, Marcel Jones, is one of Claire's oldest friends. It's unclear -- to Ran, at least -- whether Claire and Marcel's relationship remains platonic or has evolved, in his absence, in a disturbing new direction. Matters are complicated further when Ran discovers a mysterious black pot of apparent slave manufacture buried on the grounds of Wando Passo. The unearthing of this relic transports Ransom -- and the reader -- back one hundred fifty years into the story of another love triangle at Wando Passo at the height of the Civil War . . . . . . May 1861. Claire's great-great-great grand-mother, Adelaide DeLay, a beautiful thirty-three-year-old "spinster" from a top-drawer Charleston family, arrives at Wando Passo by boat, having made a marriage of convenience to the plantation's future master, Harlan DeLay. As Addie comes down the gangway, she catches the eye of the plantation's steward, Jarry, Harlan's black half brother. Trans-fixed, she sees something in Jarry's eyes "like a question that, once posed, you cannot rest until you have the answer to." In the present, when two eroded skeletons turn up buried in shallow graves, Ransom becomes obsessed with the identities of the bodies and what happened to them. Did the past triangle -- involving Addie, Harlan, and Jarry -- culminate in murder? As his marriage to Claire continues to unravel, Ran begins to wonder whether disturbing echoes of the past are leading him, Marcel, and Claire toward a similar, tragic outcome in the present. A fast-paced adventure story filled with lyrical writing, wicked humor, and unforgettable characters, Back to Wando Passo propels the two love stories, linked by place through time, to a simultaneous crescendo of betrayal, revenge, and redemption, and asks whether the present is doomed to ceaselessly repeat the past -- or if it can sometimes change and redeem it.

448 pages, Hardcover

First published May 23,2006

This edition

Format
448 pages, Hardcover
Published
May 23, 2006 by William Morrow
ISBN
9780060851897
ASIN
0060851899
Language
English

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About the author

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david payne

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David Payne was born in North Carolina and attended the Phillips Exeter Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of five novels-- Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street, Early From the Dance, Ruin Creek, Gravesend Light, Back to Wando Passo--and a memoir, Barefoot to Avalon: A Brother's Story, forthcoming from Grove Atlantic in August 2015. Visit his author website at www.davidpaynebooks.com.

Linda Barrett Osborne, Washington Post Book World:
"[Payne] understands that place most families inhabit-somewhere between love and necessity, between truth and myth, between self and the expectations, the dreams and, ultimately, the separateness of others... Writing this fine evokes a past time, but also a state of boyhood that is timeless."

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 34 votes)
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34 reviews All reviews
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celesti0n
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Double mystery, one present day and the other through the civil war - interesting characters, atmospheric Charleston rice plantation, Cuban witchcraft, strong slavery/racial involvement and altogether a pretty wild ride. Try it!
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min13
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This is a great book - the writer is incredible. If you are looking for a simple mystery, this ain't for you. There are poetry quotes, 2 time periods, racism, slavery, manic psychological issues, love, voodu, the Civil war, and a search for self. It takes place in SC on a rice plantations with a main character wife of the plantation owner) who questions her place in life and then slavery. The modern day part of the story stars a "fallen" rock guitarist who questions his place in life, himself (never good enough? or genius?) and his demons. It's a complex novel. Maybe it starts a bit slowly, but hang in there. "Human life is a condition of oppression, and religion is the search for the release. Everyone alive is after the same thing - it's our commonness, and I believe it's greater than our differences... " The "voodu" parts were well researched, but lost on me. Maybe a bit more information than I neede.
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coshkunz
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I had read the original story, Wando Passo, years ago so when I saw this sequel, I had to grab it. I was a little anxious because I am OCD about reading series books in order. I knew I had forgotten some of the details of WP, but it was okay. The author kindly took us back and forth between present and past so it didn't matter after all. I'd have liked a little more of the original information about the pot. But that said, I couldn't put it down. By the way, Wando Passo is set in South Carolina.
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Yato-Yaboku
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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If I had edited this book I would have cut it down by one-third. Characters were complex, scenes nicely descriptive, the plot engaging. Switching between present and past deftly done. The writer obviously was familiar with this historical period.

On the other hand, repetition abounded, destroying what might have been effective pace and building tension.
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Hadeyan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Narrator Dick Hill can make even a story as melodramatic as this one worth listening to, but had I been reading it on my own I would probably have left it unfinished. It's the tale of two stories that seem to overlap, merge, and fold back on themselves from the point of view of a bipolar, possibly psychotic, has been rocker with too much baggage.

I don't think I will be looking for more works from this author.
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vaultboyanthony
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Read this book several years ago when I got it on loan from the local public library. I'd really like to get a copy of Back to Wando Passo for my personal collection.

I remember loving the book and being unable to put it down as the mystery unfolded in the past and the present.

When I re-read Back to Wando Passo, I will write a more complete review.
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Natsuki_SanJuan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Not bad...a little confusing at times but deliberately so, I believe, since the protagonist is a person with bipolar disorder who is not taking their meds. There is a parallel plot from a different time period which I found more interesting than the one set in modern day. It took a while to "get into" this book but, once I did, I found it fairly gripping. 3 stars.
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jxson05
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This is a great read, especially so if you are familiar with Charleston. It switches between life during the Civil War and current times, following the lives of several families.
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