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Bennett Capers

Biography

Bennett Capers

Bennett Capers has published stories in literary magazines such as Callaloo, Gettysburg Review, Fiction and elsewhere, and his work has appeared in two anthologies of short fiction. He is a professor of law at Fordham Law School and has taught at Columbia, Yale, University of Texas and Boston University. His legal scholarship is widely published, and his op-eds have appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post. THE INHERITANCE is his debut novel.

Bennett Capers

Books by Bennett Capers

The Inheritance
by Bennett Capers - Fiction

When antiquarian Malcolm Washington is sent to a decaying plantation home on Johns Island, South Carolina, his mission is simple: authenticate and acquire a shackle rumored to have been used on the legendary leader of a thwarted slave rebellion. But the enigmatic Mrs. Manigault --- the shackle’s owner and the last white woman on the island --- is having second thoughts about selling her inheritance. What begins as a professional assessment quickly spirals into a tense battle of wits, as Mrs. Manigault insists on telling the “story” behind the shackle, which grows more fantastical at every turn. Each part of the tale is both a weapon and a test, crafted to manipulate, conceal and ultimately reveal the buried truths of the past. Trapped between Mrs. Manigault’s calculated storytelling and his personal motivations, Malcolm must come face-to-face with his own history.