Sidney Thompson’s award-winning trilogy of historical fiction: Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves: The Bass Reeves Trilogy, Book One and Hell on the Border: The Bass Reeves Trilogy, Book Two will be the basis for the Paramount+ miniseries “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.”

All heroes have fatal flaws and a moment of defining hubris, but few heroes rise from the ashes to achieve greater heights. In 1884 Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves was arrested for murder and placed among his own prisoners in Hell on the Border, the infamous federal jail in Fort Smith, Arkansas. It was the single greatest setback of his illustrious career, but it wouldn’t be his last mistake or trial by fire. In The Forsaken and the Dead, we meet Reeves again. In the 1890s, past his prime, Reeves proceeds through the valleys and shadows of Indian and Oklahoma Territories. Despite his caution and innovations as a lawman and detective, his nation no longer seems a product of his own making—so much like his children and his marriage to Jennie. While a modern world implodes around him and demons from his past continue to haunt his present, he remains resolute in his faith that he can be a steady rider on a pale horse.

Though enslaved for the first 22 years of his life, Bass Reeves rose to epic heights as the most successful and feared lawman in the Old West. The trilogy narrates his life story.

About the Author

Sidney Thompson’s newest book is a middle-grade novel, Kudzu’s Enormous New Life, which features a cast of animal characters and an autistic boy who live on a small farm in the Mississippi Delta. Margaret McMullan, author of Where the Angels Lived and How I Found the Strong, said, “Think E.B. White and Beatrice Potter. Kudzu’s Enormous New Life will be a classic.”

His other books include You/Wee: Poems from a Father and Sideshow: Stories, winner of Foreword INDIES Silver Award for Short Story Collection of the Year (2006). Thompson earned an MFA in creative writing at the University of Arkansas and a PhD in American literature/African American narratives at the University of North Texas, and now teaches creative writing and African American literature at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

This event is offered as part of the Des Moines Area Community College

War and the Human Experience Speaker Series.