"A scholarly detective story about a man who would inspire a world-changing book."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Susanna Ashton’s impressive research has recovered from near-oblivion the bold and problematic life of a former slave whose colorful story once thrilled antislavery audiences in the United States and Britain."
—Fergus M. Bordewich, author of Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction

"We should be grateful to Susanna Ashton for reviving John Andrew Jackson from long-forgotten archives. His was a truly American life, which is to say, one lived on the border between slavery and freedom. A Plausible Man is not simply plausible; it’s a story with meaning for all of us."
—Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop and Long Time Coming

"What a fascinating book Susanna Ashton has written! She is a master detective, painstakingly piecing together the fragments of John Andrew Jackson’s life. After reading this biography, readers will not only understand far more about the wildly influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin but also about the challenges enslaved people faced during and after bondage—as well as the difficulties of reconstructing those stories. With skill and creativity, Ashton shows us it can be done."
—Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts, authors of Denmark Vesey’s Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy

"Stunning research and storytelling. . . delivers a gripping portrait of a fascinating man who never stopped fighting for his place in a hostile world, and a compelling meditation on the historian’s craft."
—Marjoleine Kars, Senior Scholar, MIT, and author of Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast, winner of the 2021 Cundill History Prize and the 2021 Frederick Douglass Book Prize