What Brown's Gonna Do With You

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

New York : Riverhead Books, 2014.

458 p. ; 21 cm.

When a book wins the National Book Award (2013), that definitely puts in on one's radar - and so I brought home The Good Lord Bird with me during the spring and summer pandemic lock-down.  

This novel is a rollicking, funny, provocative and hard to put down read.  It follows the adventures of Henry, an enslaved 12 year old freed in Kansas by the passionate and violent abolitionist, John Brown.  Mistaking Henry to be Henrietta, a girl, Brown "adopts" him into his band and nicknames her "Little Onion." The novel is told by Henry who - with his maturing over about three years, his change from enslaved to free, and his passing as a girl - allows McBride to explore many angles of John Brown's movement and eventual assault on Harper's Ferry.  McBride is able to present shifting and complex takes on fanaticism, recklessness, posturing, violence, racism, slavery, sexism, opportunism, danger, and sacrifice by giving his smart-alecky, wry and cynical main character center stage.

The cover of the book has a quote from the New York Times referencing Mark Twain, and I definitely felt the sensibilities of Twain's character Huck Finn in McBride's Henry.  

The novel is not without provocation.  Henry - suffering the harsh, spartan life of being with a paramilitary band on the frontier - at times wishes he were back being enslaved.  Fredrick Douglass comes in for some harsh treatment as a "diva" of the antislavery circuit and as an intemperate sexual harasser.  But all in all, the novel is a brilliant run through a historical episode in US history that still reverberates to this day.  I would definitely recommend it to a reader who wants a good literary read that will grab them and not let go.

An Unnerving Ride

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
New York : Anchor Books,  2018.
1st Anchor Bks. ed.
313 p. ; 21 cm.

This was supposed to be Spring Break week, and instead it has turned into the start of an extended period of school closings and home isolation for weeks (no one knows how many) as the Covid-19 pandemic picks up the pace of its global onslaught here in the US.

I am so glad that one of the novels I brought home with me for the break was Whitehead's The Underground Railroad.  The novel was published to huge acclaim - winning the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and I heard it described as a fantastical tale of historical fiction where the figurative Underground Railroad is turned into an actual subterranean working railroad.  I was a bit skeptical - but - wow! - if you haven't read this novel, it is a must read.

Whitehead has also won one of those MacArthur "genius" grants and all I can say is "Yes!" and admire the foundation for recognizing him way back in 2002 when he had only written two novels. He writing is a thing of wonder.   He manages to do so many things right in such a complicated and yet accessible way.  He can create history that never was in order to make the history that was come alive in eerie and unsettling ways.  He made me mull over the (literally) tortured history of this country and the nature of human cruelty and courage in ways that go right to the heart.

Yes, Whitehead's Underground Railroad has real tunnels, tracks and locomotives - but you never for a moment doubt it.  And his narratives of enslaved life and the escape narrative will have your heart racing as you turn the pages rooting for the heroes of the novel.

It is such a thrill to read a writer's work when they are in their prime and to know that you are reading someone whose works will be read and admired long after you are gone. It is a thrill and an honor.

Can you tell I loved this novel?  Recommend it. Read it.  Sit with it and let it work its magic on you.  You won't be disappointed.

 

A Terrible History

The African Slave Trade by Basil Davidson
Boston : Little, Brown, c1980.
A rev. and expanded ed.
304 p. : ill., maps ; 22 cm.   

I've seen this book on the shelves many times.  Often when weeding, it comes up as one of our collection's oldest and "outdated" items.  However, the book is often cited as belonging to any non-fiction "Core Collection," and so I have kept it and finally decided to read it.

In many ways it is a really old book. It was first published in 1961 and then this revised version came out in 1980.  I looked for reviews critiquing it as out of date, or recommending a newer treatment of the subject, but did not find anything.

The book is powerful and apparently was a real ground-shifter when it came out.  It provides a very interesting treatment of the European relationships with African states and governments and notes how many of the initial trade relationships were established as between equals, but that the major European states maintained heavy-weapons advantages and eventually assumed a supremacy/colonial attitude toward the African states.  Also the trade in enslaved peoples was initially only part of other trade, but quickly assumed an exclusionary status.  States that resisted had little chance of survival and would face decimation and enslavement if they persisted.

The author emphasizes that the trade relationships brought nothing of real value to the African states while enriching and empowering the European states that shipped and sold the African captives.

Fiery Brown

A Volcano Beneath the Snow: John Brown's War Against Slavery by Albert Marrin
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2014]
244 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.

Like many of the history non-fiction books published with the high school audience in mind, this book has an appealing layout with lots of great photos, reproductions, etc.  It makes for a readable history.  I also like that the length of these non-fiction books is long enough for a substantive treatment of the topic, but not so exhaustive as to be daunting.

I read this book because I really wanted to learn more about John Brown and his passionate fight against slavery in the US and his willingness to die for the cause. 

Marrin does a good job describing the life of Brown and the back drop of slavery - especially the way in which slavers decided that they had to expand slavery in the US to keep their power.  He also illuminates the way in which Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry pushed the coming Civil War even closer.  But I think the biggest weakness is that Marrin tries to highlight the radical and "terrorist" nature of John Brown's actions (for example his execution of unarmed prisoners in Kansas) without fully illuminating the absolute horrors and terrorism of the slave labor system.  Having read The Half Has Never Been Told, I am aware that the cotton-slavery system that evolved after 1820 was an even more vicious, brutal and horrid system of torture/slavery that what already existed before 1820.  I think it is a good thing that Marrin wants students to really wrestle with the complexities of when or if illegal, violent action is acceptable.  But to do that you have to really be honest about the system that that action was targeting - and I don't think Marrin succeeded in that.

I would still recommend the book since it is a thorough treatment of Brown's life and conveys a lot of the dynamics of the time.     

A Graphic Novel Becomes a Graphic Novel

Octavia Butler's Kindred: a Graphic Novel Adaptation by Damian Duffy and John Jennings
New York : Abrams Comicarts, 2017.
vi, 240 p. : chiefly col. ill. ; 25 cm.

Almost two years ago, I read Butler's novel Kindred for the first time, and as I noted then, I loved it.   Therefore, about a year ago, I was excited to learn that two comics artists [Damian Duffy who lives in Urbana and John Jennings who used to live here] were in the middle of creating a graphic novel version of Butler's classic.  

If you are unfamiliar with Butler's novel, its hero is a black woman in the 1970s who finds herself suddenly dragged back in time to the antebellum enslaved world of Maryland - where she becomes tangled up with slaves and enslavers that are family connections from the past.  It is a brutal and dangerous world which she quickly has to figure out as she bounces back and forth from present to past.

Duffy and Jennings faced great challenges converting the novel to a graphic novel format, but they really have outdone themselves - and the reception to their work has been extremely positive - landing them on the NYT bestseller list.  With shifting uses of color and skilled condensing of narrative, they have preserved the power of Butler's work, while opening it up to a new generation of readers and fans of graphic novels.

The publisher Abrams has a nice page web page for the novel - allowing you to see samples of the gorgeous artwork of Duffy and Jennings.

This is a work that I will definitely be recommending.

Rough Cotton

The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist
New York : Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, [2014]
xxvii, 498 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.

Read this book!  If you love history, read this book. If you want to see US history in a very new way, read this book.  If you want to have many of your assumptions about slavery and the Civil War turned on their heads, read this book.  The Half Has Never Been Told is long, complicated, riveting, and incredibly well written - read it!  For me this book brought to mind the books - Slavery by Another Name and Guns Germs and Steel - for it's power to tilt one's understanding of history and how power works.

I can't say enough about what an important and interesting book this is.  I'll be recommending it to any students who love history, and to any teachers interested in history.

Lastly, I'd be remiss not to note that I first heard of this book on a list of recommended books from Ta-Nehisi Coates who's book Between the World and Me is another book to recommend again and again!  

A Slave to Time Traveling

Kindred by Octavia Butler
Boston : Beacon Press, [2004], c1979.
287 p. ; 21 cm.

Kindred is a great novel.  I had to state that before saying anything else about Butler's novel, such as how it is  very creative science-fiction, well thought-out historical fiction, and an exciting read.  It really is a wonderful book.

The premise of the plot involves an African-American woman in the 1970s who is suddenly and involuntarily thrown back into the early 1800s where she has to navigate the incredibly dangerous world of antebellum slavery in Maryland.  She bounces back and forth several times, usually against her will, and the duration of time is very different in the past and present dimensions. I don't want to give away much more since many of the details of the time-travel are tightly woven into the plot of the novel.

It was serendipitous that I picked this book right after reading Twelve Years a Slave - they make perfect reading companions.  The book, though written in the 1970s, is very timely with it's deep exploration of US slavery - exploring its effects on society, family, the psyche, ethics, and relationships.

Butler's accomplishment is to create a thrilling, fascinating and deeply disturbing story that is hard to put down.  It's well-written, engaging, creative and...well, like I said, a great novel.

Better Than Fiction (and Worse)

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup
New York, NY : Penguin Books, 2013.
xxxviii, 240 p. : ill ; 20 cm.

When the movie, Twelve Years a Slave, came out about 2 years ago, I knew I would want to read the book.  At the time, I bought a couple of new copies of the book for my library, and I've finally gotten around to reading it - stunning!  I can't say enough about what a fine book this is.

I thought that since this autobiography was written over a hundred and fifty years ago, it might be a bit formal or stiff, but it is wonderfully written.  There are several things that make the story of Northrup's ordeal such a tour de force.  First, the circumstances of his living thirty years a free man, only to be kidnapped and sold into slavery make the story immediate and chilling.  The reader can imagine the experience in a visceral way different from narratives of those born into slavery. Northrup's tale reads like a modern Kafkaesque story of one man's descent into a horrifying alternate universe.  As Fredrick Douglas said of Twelve Years a Slave, "It chills the blood."  

Also, since Northrup was so concerned that he not be accused of fabricating his narrative, he includes specific names and details that make the action of the book terribly real and give the book a cinematic effect.  Steve McQueen, the director of the Oscar winning film of the same name, writes in the Foreword, "The book read like a film script, ready to be shot."

I'm not sure I'll be able to get a lot of students to read Twelve Years a Slave, but I'm going to give it a try.  I'll feel certain telling them it's a book that will blow them away - more than any dystopian fiction novel could!

Bitter Sweet

Sugar Changed the World: a Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
Boston : Clarion Books, c2010.
ix, 166 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.

Just as Kurlansky's book on cod makes the case for the often overlooked importance of cod in world affairs and US history, so too Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos' wonderful book on sugar brings this common food item to life by telling its bloody & compelling history.  There is a painful irony that such a sweet substance is so inextricably tied into the immense holocaust of the African slave trade in the Americas - especially in South America and the Caribbean.

For example, in Sugar Changed the World we learn that in just over 100 years between 1701 and 1810 years, nearly a million slaves were shipped into just two "sugar" islands in the Caribbean - the British sugar/slave islands of Barbados and Jamaica. The book reveals that sugar slavery was an especially brutal and lethal fate for slaves.  Up to the time of Emancipation in the US, about 500,000 slaves were brought into North America, while more than 2 million were taken to the various "sugar" islands - and yet at Emancipation, the slave population in North American had risen 4 million, while the slave population of the islands was 670,000.  The sugar plantations of the Caribbean were places where most slaves were worked to death.

The book conveys the hell that was the sugar plantations of the Caribbean (and eventually of Louisiana in the US) in ways that are factual without being overwhelming for middle to high school readers. In detailing the workings of the sugar slave plantations the book would make an excellent pairing with The Poet Slave of Cuba by Margarita Engle.  A strength of Aronson and Budhos' book is that it not only chronicles the horrors of the the sugar slave world, but presents the culture and resilience of the people who lived and died as slaves in the sugar plantations and as workers in the sugar industry after slavery officially ended.

Aronson and and Budhos do an excellent job of giving the global history of sugar (where it came from, and how it became cultivated), explaining how sugar is processed, and revealing that sugar was an economic engine for the emerging imperialist states of Britain, the US, and France.The authors also devote a significant section of their book to the successful slave revolt in Haiti and the contradictions of the US relations with Haiti.

The book has excellent photos, maps and graphics which make the story interesting and very clear.  I would highly recommend this book for any student interested in the fascinating and brutal history of sugar. Lastly, for any teachers considering using the book in their classrooms, there is a great website for the book - including a Teacher's Guide!

Brutal Beauty: Slavery & Poetry

Sugar Plantation - from the NYPL Digital Gallery

The Poet Slave of Cuba by Margarita Engle
New York : Henry Holt, 2006.
183 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

I'm not sure why this 2008 Pura Belpre Award winner didn't grab my attention until recently.  Maybe it's just that I'm not sure that biographies in verse are very effective (or appealing to young readers).  However, the book was recently turned in, and and I decided to give it a chance.  I'm glad I did!

The book tells - in poetry - the amazing (and heart breaking) story of Juan Francisco Manzano (1797-1854) a slave and poet who excelled at literature, yet suffered horrendous cruelty and was eventually silenced by repression.

Though the poetry is accessible and interesting, I think some students might find the details of Manzano's life a bit confusing.  He is celebrated by some of Cuba's literati of the time and granted freedom (that is never achieved) by his first "owner" - while his second "owner" both dotes on him and subjects him to grotesque abuse.  However, the story of  Manzano is so compelling  -and his accomplishments in such a hellish world so wondrous - that I'd be pleased to recommend this book to any student looking for a slave narrative, a compelling tale in verse, or a resource on slavery or Cuban history.

The notes at the end of the book are helpful and a few excerpts of Manzano's poetry bring the character of Engle's poems to life.