girl in greenwood

The Known World
by Edward P. Jones

This was a hard book to read. It's a novel written in the style of a historical account about a group of slaves, white slave owners, and free black people in Virginia just before the Civil War. I found it painfully honest and explicit about the horrors of slavery, including some rarely-discussed practices such as free blacks buying their own slaves, and free blacks being kidnapped and sold back into slavery.

I believe the title refers to the small area that contains all the characters and action of the book - a few plantations and their slave quarters in one county. Though the geographic area may be small, the depth of feeling and the effect on the reader are enormous.

Labels: book reports