Original Sins: A Novel of Slavery and Freedom
Grace Pollocke is an artist; she paints portraits in miniature. Her husband arrives home to Philadelphia after being in China for several years. Traveling with him is Anibaddh, the Rani of Nungklow. It is not the first time she has been in America, for she is a runaway slave from Virginia. At great personal risk she has returned to establish a silk business, but this raises Grace’s suspicions.
Grace, a woman with a sharp intellect, is well read in politics and literature, a rare find in 1840. Her current patron, Mrs. Ambler, arrives accompanied by her sister, Mrs. MacFarlane. Engaged in a conversation about religion and slavery, Grace becomes disturbed by her subject, as her views are completely contrary to theirs. Anibaddh overhears the women and immediately recognizes their voices. They are the daughters of Judge Grant of Grantsboro Plantation and therefore Grace’s cousins.
When Grace steps in harm’s way to save her son, she realizes why Annibadh has returned. There could be only one reason she would risk her own life and sacrifice her freedom: a child. Unaware of their common ancestral lineage, the women invite Grace to visit Grantsboro to paint other family members. Realizing she can help Anibaddh with her mission, she accepts their request.
What follows is the complicated and almost too coincidental yet thrilling story of Grace’s past, the discovery of her family’s slaveholding past, and their unspeakable transgressions. Grace is a character with vitality: bold and daring, with unconventional thoughts and actions for the time in which she lives. As a painter, she is mesmerized by the daguerreotype photography process and saddened by the newly installed gaslights in her city.
Original Sins, the author’s second novel, is a deeply creative and honest look at slavery and the ugly truths of human bondage that still emerge from America’s past. Highly recommended.
