Burn Down Master’s House
Well-deserving of its title, Cane’s story begins on Magnolia Row, the worst plantation in Goochland, Virginia, where Henri, Luke, and Ruby yearn to burn it all down. Henri and Luke work in Master Ragland’s house and are sexually demeaned by Ragland Junior. Housekeeper and cook Ruby instructs little orphan Josephine in the ways of white mansions. Josephine absorbs it all, and when we meet her young adult self a decade later, she is hardened to cruelty, rape, and whipping, and vows to “make a change there before long.” Larkin is part of that delegation of change.
Larkin enters Charity’s world in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where freedom can be won under the Gradual Abolition Act of 1780. Nathaniel Williams is a Black slave owner trying to slide in with the White Supremacists as a legitimate slave owner. By this time the author has brought us to the 1860s Civil War.
If this sounds like disparate stories about disparate people, you’re right, but the stories do interconnect, coming full circle to culminate in a reckoning on Williams’ plantation. Far from a typical story of American slavery, the cast, all superbly drawn, divulge little in the way of origin, but represent, as time passes, a growing swell of rebellion and retribution, seeking revenge on the whole ghastly institution. Very graphic, tragic, cruel, and filled with despicable people including Williams, despite his Black skin, this all amounts to a difficult read; but for each circumstance there comes a raising of brave souls who refuse to tread the path any longer.
Using historical incidents of rebellion, Cane’s deployment of time is somewhat fluid. The author’s notes about a society “untethered from truth” where its people “can be easily controlled” and “divided by lies” are worth a read and reread. A well-written and poignant account speaking loudly to contemporary times.
