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Clay Cane's novel Burn Down Master’s House just hit #5 on the NYT best sellers list!

Burn Down Master’s House Is Officially a New York Times Bestseller

I want to say thank you to everyone who supported Burn Down Master’s House against the odds. Because of you, the novel has reached #5 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction list, and that is something I do not take lightly.

Two years ago, I was honored to be a New York Times bestseller in nonfiction with The Grift: The Downward Spiral of Black Republicans from the Party of Lincoln to the Cult of Trump. To now reach the New York Times list in fiction during Carter G. Woodson’s Black History Month is incredible. It would not have happened without the support of listeners of The Clay Cane Show on SiriusXM Urban View, the broader SiriusXM Urban View community, and SiriusXM Progress listeners, who showed up, spread the word, and believed in this book. Also, the independent media outlets who showed up, to the book clubs, early readers, and reviewers who bought the book and spread the word. This moment belongs to all of us!

I still have tour stops ahead, and the book is selling out in many locations, so you may need to order online. For now, signed copies are only available at Busboys and Poets. Please ask your local bookstore to carry it!

https://claycane.substack.com/p/burn-down-masters-house-is-officially

Clay Cane Burns It All Down

For his debut novel, Clay Cane drew inspiration from the real-life stories of enslaved people who fought against bondage in the American South. Clay Cane is many things: journalist, historian, author, and host of The Clay Cane Show on SiriusXM. But he’s long hoped to add another title to that list: novelist.

Next year—on the heels of his 2024 nonfiction bestseller The Grift: The Downward Spiral of Black Republicans from the Party of Lincoln to the Cult of Trump—he’ll finally accomplish that goal when Dafina publishes Burn Down Master’s House, which was inspired by true stories of enslaved people who rose up and fought back against chattel slavery in the United States.

“I started writing Burn Down Master’s House 24 years ago,” Cane says from his office in Jersey City, N.J., which he’s called home since 1998. “I had just started at Rutgers, and my first class was Black studies with Dr. Zain Abdullah. He changed my life completely. I was activated and triggered. I became obsessed with what they called slave narratives back then. I was really moved by these stories of people writing their own stories, their own perspectives, and it really triggered me.”

He was also inspired by the historical fiction he was reading at the time—works by writers such as Arna Bontemps and Margaret Walker, as well as Uncle Tom's Children is by Richard Wright. “I learned so much from historical fiction,” Cane says. “I understood the politics and the policy better, I understood the underpinnings of slavery better, and I said, I want to do it this way.”

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/99105-clay-cane-burns-it-all-down.html