Fresh News Straight from Heaven. A Novel based upon the True Mythology of Johnny Appleseed

"I happen to believe that genius makes people weird," a storyteller once said, explaining how Johnny Appleseed could be at once so peculiar and so profound.A Novel based upon the True Mythology of Johnny AppleseedBetween 1801 and 1812, Ohio and the Old Northwest territory runs wild and brutal, with a fragile peace, savage living conditions, and the laws of civilization far away. Still, settlers stake everything they own on the chance of building better lives for themselves in this new frontier.John Chapman--aka Johnny Appleseed--knows this land better than any white man. Everywhere he goes, he shares the "Fresh News Straight from Heaven," which he hears right from the voices of angels who chat with him regularly. God had promised him personally that he could build peace by growing fruit.Convincing people of that vision, though, is no easy task. Most folks consider him mad.This land teems with a miscellaneous assemblage of soldiers, scoundrels, freebooters, runaway slaves, circuit riders, and religious cultists. Ambitious politicians, like Aaron Burr and William Henry Harrison, dream of creating a new empire there. Meanwhile, a reformed drunkard emerges among the Shawnee as a Prophet, one who spoke with the Great Spirit, Waashaa Monetoo. Along with his brother, the war chief Tecumseh, the Prophet begins building an Indian coalition to take back their land.Even while the tensions mount, Johnny, with angels urging him on, skates blithely through the crossfire and...