He saw the man Chan Wu enter town by wagon from the west. Mr. Wu halted, stepped down, and walked the boardwalk to the mercantile. William entered the city and waited near the corner of the store for Mr. Wu to emerge. When he did, William set his letter in the Chinese man’s hand. “For the woman, Miss Lowry. Kindly for her.”
Shann Ray: A Novel. American Copper. Lakewood, Colorado: Unbridled Books, 2015.
Ray’s debut novel, American Copper, is a love song to America revealing the radiant and profound life of Evelynne Lowry, a woman who transcends the national myth of regeneration through violence. American Copper won the Foreword Book of the Year Readers’ Choice Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award.
While the settings in American Copper clearly reference actual locales, it is understood that the book—including its places—is ultimately the product of the author’s imagination. The intent of this literary map is to enrich the reading experience by interpreting those places, not to render them literally or definitively.
Watch Shann Ray’s 2013 TEDxSpokane talk, The Greatest Work of Art is to Love Someone.