The Pilgrim - Hardcover

Nissenson, acclaimed for his powerful narratives (The Days of Awe; The Tree of Life), here shows the tight grip of religious devotion on one young man's mind... History, politics, faith, and daily life all come together in a strong story.

"Nissenson's latest (The Days of Awe, 2005, etc.) is a marvelously intimate look back through time. Charles' fears and desires are made quite believable as he recalls the everyday horrors of the time-and the bits of Scripture that both justified and aggravated them. And while the young protagonist earnestly seeks salvation, his all-too-human failings-such as when he and the pretty Abigail Winslow flirt on the Sabbath-make him as sympathetic as any young striver since Holden Caulfield. The author's return to historical fiction raises human questions with immediacy and flair."

Nissenson has penned a bleak, unsparing novel, peopled with flawed humans and accurate period details.

The Pilgrim is such a delightful find. Hugh Nissenson's moody, intelligent novel is about a tormented English Puritan who strikes out for the Plymouth Plantation in 1622... It conjures up that dangerous black magic spell that the most powerful historical novels cast: The Pilgrim makes us feel that, even if this version of the past isn't quite accurate, this is the version we wholeheartedly believe - at least for the space of reading."

Nissenson spins a compelling historical tale steeped in the religious and cultural customs of the original Puritans... The authentically rendered first-person perspective that propels the narrative illuminates both Wentworth's prolonged dark night of the soul and his daily trials and experiences.

"The reader is transported back to the earliest days of the settling of America by the sworn statement of one Charles Wentworth, who came to Plymouth soon after the Mayflower landing. The powerful influence of religion and the church is portrayed through his struggles with both his humanity and his faith, as Charles mourns the tragic loss of his betrothed while at the same time reveling in the death of the 'savages' who must be conquered to create a safe new home. This is a great work of historical fiction"

"Hugh Nissenson's vision of a re-created society and ethos is remarkable, the language crafted out of plainness and purity – a plainness and purity which, both in the individual phrase and cumulatively, rise to majesty. The Pilgrim is a masterwork of fierceness, insight, inhabitation, and relentless power." -Cynthia Ozick, author of Foreign Bodies

"A lustrous recreation. Hugh Nissenson has taken the ore of research and transmuted it into the gold of art. The Pilgrim is impossible to put
down until the final words. And then they continue to carom endlessly in the mind." -Stefan Kanfer, author of Tough Without a Gun (recent Bogart bio), Ball of Fire (Lucille Ball bio), Groucho
"Hugh Nissenson's The Pilgrim is a startling, beautiful, numinous prose-poem about the founding of our country. It will surely be enshrined forever in the canon of American literature." -Johanna Kaplan, O My America!, Other People's Lives