George and Rue Author:George Elliott Clarke It was a "slug-ugly" crime. Brothers George and Rufus Hamilton, in a robbery gone wrong, drunkenly bludgeoned a taxi driver to death with a hammer. It was 1949, and the two siblings, part Mikmaq and part African, were both hanged for the killing. Those facts are skeletons in George Elliott Clarkes family closet. Both repelled ... more »and intrigued by his ancestral cousins deeds, which he learned about from his mother shortly before her death, poet, playwright and screenwriter Clarke set out to discover just what kind of forces would reduce men to crime, violence and, ultimately, murder. His findings took shape in the 2001 Governor Generals Awardwinning Execution Poems and culminates brilliantly in George and Rue. The novel shifts seamlessly back into the killers pasts, recounting a bleak and sometimes comic tale of victims of violence who became killers, a black community too poor and too shamed to assist its downtrodden members, and a white community bent on condemning all blacks as dangerous outsiders. This is a book about a death that brims with fierce vitality and dark humor. Infused with the sensual, rhythmic beauty that defines Clarkes writing, here is a literary debut that will be marked by celebrationand controversy.« less