Lois Leveen:
The Secrets of Mary Bowser

The Secrets of Mary Bowser (HarperCollins/William Morrow), offers insights into the amazing, long-forgotten role one African American woman played in the war that ended slavery.

Mary Bowser was a real person, born into slavery but freed by the daughter of the family that owned her and sent north to be educated. Bowser made the daring choice to return to Virginia, where she pretended to be a slave in the Confederate White House so she could spy on Jefferson Davis, passing what she learned to the Union Army. Drawing on intense historical research, this deeply moving novel based on Bowser's life reveals the struggles and triumphs of slave families in industrialized Richmond and of free black families in antebellum Philadelphia—while giving voice to an inspirational, true-to-life heroine.

Dr. Lois Leveen holds degrees in history and literature from Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and UCLA. A former faculty member at UCLA and Reed College, she gives talks nationally and internationally on American history, literature, and culture, with special emphasis on race. She is a regular contributor to “Disunion,” the New York Times’ ongoing coverage of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Her poetry, short humor pieces, and scholarly essays have appeared in many publications and on National Public Radio. http://www.loisleveen.com