Center for the literary arts in New York State
STRANGE TALES OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
Dennard Dayle
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Conversation / Q&A
University at Albany
Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West
1400 Washington Avenue Albany NY 12222 - See map.
Dennard Dayle is a Jamaican American humorist and fiction writer whose work appears frequently in The New Yorker. His first novel is How to Dodge a Cannonball (2025), a razor-sharp satire that dives into the heart of the Civil War.
The novel follows the misadventures of a young white idealist who ultimately joins an all-Black Union regiment full of strange characters, including a science-fiction playwright, a Haitian double agent, and a former slave feuding with God. Gary Shteyngart said, “I can’t think of a wittier, more hilarious or more relevant young writer. How to Dodge a Cannonball is the great Civil War novel I didn’t know I needed.”
In an interview with the Albany Times Union, Dayle said, "As a humorist, I was drawn to writing about the Civil War because it’s so important to America and our unresolved tensions with each other. Humor is an essential part of human connection, and I believe it works best in scenarios that are often difficult to talk about. That’s when humor has a real purpose.” Read the interview.
Cosponsored by the English Department’s Creative Writing Program and Young Writers Project, UAlbany’s Writing & Critical Inquiry Program (WCI), and the Honors College.
(Photo credit Johnny Tang)
from the publisher:
“Here is an author capturing, with clarity, our current moment by flashing us back to the past. Dayle’s deft portrayal of American anti-Blackness, class exploitation and cultural uncertainty feels both accurate to the novel’s 19th-century setting and, soberingly, very contemporary... It takes an author of rare and exceptional talent to deliver such a knockout punch. Which is why How to Dodge a Cannonball establishes Dennard Dayle as a new heavyweight in town.” ― Mat Johnson in The New York Times
“This hilarious, smart satire about the Civil War follows a teen idealist who enlists to suss out who can actually achieve the American Dream. It’s a madcap adventure.” ― People
“Grand dreams, inflated egos, and cruel twists of fate are often the stuff of great satires and this first novel by Dayle evokes such classic accounts of the human condition in conflict as Candide, Catch-22, and at least a couple of books by Evelyn Waugh. Historical burlesque as lively in invention as it is ingenious in execution.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“This epic novel channels the absurdity of Catch-22 and the whimsical invention of The Intuitionist. It’s a blast.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“This is not the typical Civil War novel, but the dark humor and commentary on race, class, and the American experiment in the midst of its biggest test make for an entertaining, thought-provoking read.”
— Library Journal
