The narrator tells a rambling tale held in check by a family editor that covers three generations of sugar plantation slaves owned by British resident “massas.” These are not benevolent owners as in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind. Read moreĪndrea Levy has written a lyrical novel of slavery and freedom in Jamaica during the first half of the 19th Century. This novel was shortlisted for the 2010 Booker Prize and is a worthy contender for that honor. The people in her life - both slaves and whites - were well drawn, and Andrea Levy didn't shy away from the violent realities of slave treatment, the consequences of rebellion, and the tension once slaves were free but still expected to work on plantations. Her survival was mostly due to pure cunning, mixed with a bit of luck. That sentence alone tells you her life was an unusual one, and there are many details and plot twists the reader can look forward to in this novel.I loved this book, and I loved July and her strong personality. Now an old woman, July is living with her son and his family and sets to writing her story. When she was a child, the English mistress took a liking to her and brought her from the fields into the house, forcibly separating July from her mother and insisting on calling her "Marguerite." July came of age serving the mistress, and made it through some very tumultuous times, including the Baptist Rebellion and later, the abolition of slavery. Miss July was born a slave on a Jamaican sugar plantation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |