An astonishing debut novel that bears witness to the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War and the first term of Obama's presidency, The Travelers is both an intimate family portrait and a searing examination of America today.
James Vincent is born in 1942 to a working class white couple whose marriage was already on the rocks. James struggles to move beyond a difficult childhood and escapes the violence at home to attend law school in Michigan, where he begins to envision his future as prosperous and bright.
Meanwhile, on a rural road in Georgia, Agnes Miller, a black woman on her first date with a handsome suitor, is pulled over by the police, and the terrible moments that follow make her question whether she will have a future at all. As the years unspool ahead of them, unexpected turns of fate will connect these two lives and their families- two Americans who each come up against the forces of race, class, and gender that change - and end - ordinary lives.