Deborah Baker | Biographer / Essayist

Advance Praise for Charlottesville

"Heart-stopping and heartbreaking narrative, with a rich and complex story of how the everyday people of a small city fought for justice long before the tiki torches blazed. Charlottesville is essential history, reportage, and maybe how-to for all who care for that struggle."

Jeff Sharlet, NYT bestselling
author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War

"With the precision of a master pointillist painter, Deborah Baker puts human faces on the buried truths that imperil American democracy while also amplifying the unheeded voices of the kind of unsung citizens who may yet save it. A must-read feat of spellbinding storytelling that packs the power of prophetic truth."

Nancy MacLean,
author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America

“No one has explained the struggle for contemporary America's soul as masterfully as Deborah Baker does in Charlottesville. Whether she's depicting the battles of ordinary citizens against provocateurs in the street or the pentimento effect of the past in the present, Baker puts her readers right there, on the spot. A family tragedy, a ghost story and a political thriller all at once, this book is a gripping and terrifying portrait of our time.”

Deborah Cohen,
author of Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War