Museum of Human Beings is Colin’s first novel (McBooks, hardcover, Nov. 1, $23.95).  Publisher’s Weekly calls it “a stylish look at the fate of Sacagawea’s baby son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau… An impressively rounded portrait of the laid-back, introspective, nomadic Baptiste, this novel will satisfy fans of American history.”

From deprivation in the wilderness to the lavish courts of European nobility, this poignant historical novel explores the life and quest of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea. After the famed Lewis and Clark expedition and the death of his mother, Jean-Baptiste was brought up as Clark’s foster son. He was eventually paraded throughout Europe as a curiosity from the wilds of America, labeled as a half gentleman and half animal, entertaining nobility as a concert pianist. Jean-Baptiste returns to North America with a burning desire to create his own place in the New World. In doing so he returns to the heart of the American wilderness on an epic quest for ultimate identity that brings sacrifice, loss, and the distant promise of redemption.

“In pulsating prose that triggers all of the senses, Museum of Human Beings takes us on a spirited journey to discover the far-flung life of Sacagawea’s son. Smart, imaginative, and historically-informed, this novel contains heartbreaks of many dimensions, all of them believable and thought-provoking. It captivated me, start to finish.”
— Bunny McBride, Pulitzer nominee and author of Women of the Dawn and Molly Spotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris