We've just completed the design for the new Concord Free Press novel Push Comes to Shove by Wesley Brown. This is our second novel with this revolutionary new publishing company and we'll be gearing up to design the third one this summer.

Push Comes to Shove takes readers back to the Vietnam Era, when fear mixed with freedom to create a time unlike any other in US history. Brown’s brilliant, sweeping novel of activism and violence reminds us that years of struggle and personal sacrifice led the way from the Civil Rights Movement to the first black U.S. President.

As the turbulent Sixties draw to a close, NYC police raid the headquarters of Push Comes to Shove—a group of black activists, dreamers, and lovers based in a gritty tenement in Lower Manhattan—and kill Walter Armstead with a shotgun blast to the face. Was he an innocent victim of violent times? Police collaborator? Or both? His death triggers a series of violent reprisals from extremists in the group—from a subway bombing to kidnappings to a showdown in the Black Hills of South Dakota. “As someone who came of age during the 1960’s,” Brown says. “I’ve always been amazed by all the conventional beliefs that were called into question and, for better and worse, the extremes to which people on all sides of these questions were willing to go.”

The cover design for Push Comes to Shove uses a haunting and powerful photograph of riot police suited up for duty. The image illustrates the tension between police and activists that occurs right before these two forces collide and begin their struggle for power.

Wesley's book is available for free beginning today.