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At a time when women did not commonly travel unescorted, carry a rifle, sit down in bars, or have romantic liaisons with other women, Lucy Lobdell boldly set forth to earn men's wages. Lucy Lobdell did all of these things in a personal quest to work and be paid, to wear what she wanted, and love whomever she cared to. But to gain those freedoms she had to endure public scorn and wrestle with a sexual identity whose vocabulary had yet to be invented. In this riveting historical novel, William Klaber captures the life of a brave woman who saw well beyond her era.
This is the fictionalized account of Lucy's foray into the world of men and her inward journey to a new sexual identity. It is her promised memoir as hear and recorded a century later by William Klaber, an upstream neighbor. Meticulously researched and told with compassion and respect, this is historical fiction at its best.
First published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2013
"By serving as Lucy's voice - not to mention doing what was obviously a great deal of historical research - the author becomes her advocate and encourages readers to do the same. A unique and important book." - Publishers Weekly
"A well-crafted 'memoir' of an unforgettable person, with plenty of questions about freedom, love and responsibility." - Kirkus
"Beautifully told, by the time I finished I felt I knew not only Lucy, but had a far better understanding of the America of her times. A first class novel about an truly unforgettable woman." - Robert Hicks, New York Times bestselling author of The Widow of the South and A Separate Country
"William Klaber has created a complicated and heartbreaking heroine, or do I mean hero? Whether Lucy is living as a man or a woman, working as a music teacher or a hired gun, I was utterly absorbed in her adventures. A wonderful debut." - Margot Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street and The Flight of Gemma Hardy
This information about The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
William Klaber is a part-time journalist. He lives in upstate New York on a hill overlooking Basket Creek, a short way upstream from where Lucy Lobdell lived 160 years ago.
The farmhouse he bought with his wife, Jean, in 1980 had a history with Lucy's legend, but he didn't know that till years later when he sat down for breakfast with a longtime local historian who told him Lucy's story and showed him a leather satchel filled with recollections, newspaper articles, and letters about her, gathered over the years. In this collection was a copy of a self-written account of Lucy's early life that the historian had found in an unmarked box in a library basement.
Despite his continued searching, the historian never found the memoir that Lucy had promised to write. Explaining that he had always ...
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