All tagged American slavery
So often writers tease out an elaborate story by asking a series of compelling what-ifs. In the case of Percival Everett’s most recent novel, James (2024), this is certainly the case. Everett spins an alternate history of American slavery that draws the reader in and provokes readers to reconsider certain narratives. Because, what if? James is the tale of the enslaved man readers met a century ago in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but Everett’s Jim is far more complicated and dynamic than his literary debut (à la Twain) depicted.
Geraldine Brooks’s most recent novel, Horse (2022), threads the lives of various characters existing across 150 years of American history into a powerful story. The three storylines braid together as the narrative builds; and it is a horse that binds the strands to one another. As she has did in People of the Book, artifact and historical characters speak to the lives of modern ones and a tapestry of individuals and subplots work their way toward mutual resolution.
Certain novels are slow and contemplative; they paint a portrait of a life or a time using carefully selected shades and hues to capture a mood. There may not be much action beyond that of memory, but it is enough. More than enough even. Marilynne Robinson’s winner of the Pulitzer and National Book Critics Circle Award, Gilead (2004) is one such novel. Contemplative, slow-burn writing like hers gets at the big questions of life with a hefty serving of earnest feeling sprinkled throughout. Written in first-person, Gilead is one man’s reflection upon his life, his family, and the meaning of human goodness.
works that envision various possible experiences of enslavement and the Underground Railroad like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2017), provide modern Americans with ample food-for-thought when considering race relations, questions of reparations, and more. Whitehead’s novel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2017 and the National Book Award, provides an alternate history of slavery in the American South, not in terms of downplaying its brutality, but by exploring various means of dealing with its consequence.
Alexis Coe’s You Never Forget Your First (2020)b was a fast read and an enjoyable refresher of eighteenth-century American history. Coe humanizes Washington, acknowledging the ways in which he positioned himself to become a prominent citizen, a revolutionary and a leader among men while recognizing the avenues in which his greatness fell short.
