The Longest Memory by Fred D'aguiar
The story of a rebellious and fiercely intelligent young slave and the escape attempt that cost him his life is told from the perspectives of his father, the master, the master's daughter, and the overseer's son. Reprint. NYT. K. PW. Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly A slave flees a Virginia plantation in 1810; his father divulges his whereabouts to their master, hoping to win leniency; instead, the runaway is caught and whipped to death, just one day after his mother has died. This stark tragedy unfolds through a chorus of alternating voices in this fiercely lyrical, powerful fiction debut by Guyanese poet D'Aguiar (Mama Dot). The intense guilt felt by Whitechapel, the anguished father who inadvertently betrays his son, Chapel, drives the narrative. Sanders Junior, a sadistic overseer, kills Chapel without realizing that they are half-brothers (through an act of rape by Sanders Senior). Another pivotal element that broadens the story is Chapel's doomed love affair with Lydia, the plantation master's free-spirited, abolitionist daughter, with whom he plans to escape to freedom. Through a series of mock contemporary newspaper editorials inserted into the text, D'Aguiar incisively represents the struggle of racist Virginia planters to reconcile slaveholding with Christianity. He also explores the conflict among African American slaves between obedient, stoic survivalists and defiant rebels, adding resonance to his haunting tale. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the hardcover edition. Review Written in taut, poetic language, THE LONGEST MEMORY is set on a Virginian plantation in the 19th century, and tells the tragic story of a rebellious, fiercely intelligent young slave who breaks all the rules: in learning to read and write, in falling in love with a white girl, the daughter of his owner, and, finally, in trying to escape and join her in the free North. For his attempt to flee, he is whipped to death in front of his family, and this brutal event is the pivot around which the story evolves. --This text refers to the hardcover edition. About the Author Fred D'Aguiar was born in London in 1960 and raised in Guyana and south-east London. He now lives in Florida, where he teaches English at the University of Miami. Author of four novels and four books of poetry, he has been awarded the University of Kent's T.S. Eliot prize for poetry, the Guyanese National Poetry Award and the Malcolm X prize for poetry. He also won the 1994 Whitbread First Novel Award and the David Higham Award for The Longest Memory. --This text refers to the hardcover edition. From Booklist This first novel of the acclaimed Guyanese poet, now London resident, is spectacular, not in showiness, but in its sublimity. Its brevity belies its power; it haunts, impresses, depresses--but ultimately causes the reader to rejoice over the ability of fiction to tell truths. The setting is antebellum Virginia, and the plot centers on one despicable incident. A young male slave attempts to run away, is quickly apprehended, and dies in the process of being punished. The structure of the narrative works superbly; in 13 sections, various individuals involved in the young slave's life speak their piece. We hear from, among other persons, his adoptive father, the senior slave on the plantation, who grieves but tries to numb himself as a way of coping with the situation; the plantation owner, who is benevolent to a degree but to whom slaves still represent property; the plantation overseer, who carries out the beating; the cook in the big house, mother of the runaway; and the daughter of the master, who taught the slave to read and by her association with him engendered his flight to freedom. The inhumanity of slavery has not been so achingly understood or expressed so beautifully since Toni Morrison's very disturbing Beloved , and no fiction collection can do without it. Brad Hooper --This text refers to the hardcover edition. From Library Journal The early 19th-century Virginia plantation that forms the setting of this first novel by a prize-winning Guyanese poet and playwright is a remarkable place, peopled with philosophical types of the sort that inhabit the TV series Picket Fences: the wise old slave who is forced to watch his wife's rebellious son flogged to death, the enlightened plantation owner who eschews such punishment, the local newspaper editor, and even the cruel overseer who is able to reflect on his fate and argue issues. The plot concerns a young slave, in love with a white girl, who is inadvertently betrayed by his father when he attempts to flee. Readers who can suspend disbelief and slough off the didacticism will be rewarded by D'Aguiar's lyrical and evocative rendering of this singular American tragedy through the various points of view-in modes ranging from rhymed couplets to diary entries and editorials-of each of the participants. For general collections. David Sowd, formerly with Stark Cty. District Lib., Canton, Ohio Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
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Binding: Paperback
Published by: Vintage: , 1995
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ISBN: 9780099462217 | 0099462214
144 pages.
Book Condition: Good
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