Gentleman in Charleston and the Manner of His Death

“Baldwin again proves himself to be a writer uniquely adept at bridging high art with the wild ride of a page-turning southern yarn.” —Bret Lott, national bestselling author of Jewel

Once deemed “the most powerful man in the South,” Charleston newspaper editor Frank Dawson met his violent death on March 12, 1889, at the hands of his neighbor, a disreputable doctor who was attempting to seduce the Dawson family governess.

With a southern storyteller’s passion for intricate emotional and physical details, Baldwin, through the fictional guise of Capt. David Lawton, chronicles editor Dawson’s fated end. Having survived three years of bloody Civil War combat and the decade of violent Reconstruction that followed, the liberal-minded Lawton is now an embattled newspaperman whose national importance is on the wane. Still, he remains a celebrated member of Charleston’s elite, while in private life moving amid a pantheon of proud and beautiful women—Sarah, his brilliant wife; Abbie, his sensual sister-in-law; Mary, the all-knowing prostitute; and Hélène, the discontented Swiss governess—each contributing to an unfolding drama of history-haunted turmoil.

War, earthquake, political guile, adultery, illegitimacy, lust, and murder—all the devices of gothic romance—play a role in this tale closely based on the lives of Charlestonians who lived these events over a century ago.

“William Baldwin is that rare southern writer who writes for all people of all time. As I read his beautiful words in A Gentleman in Charleston and the Manner of His Death I walked the Holy City’s streets with my ancestors and, believe me, I never wanted the trip to end. This is an important book and a wonderful rich story.” —Dorothea Benton Frank, New York Times–bestselling author