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 Property by Valerie Martin. Orange Prize
(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com) Property, set in 1828 on a Louisiana plantation, opens with a shocking scene. A wife watches her husband through a telescope as he plays a sadistic game with his young male slaves. But the cool and precise writing allows for no melodrama: our first-person narrator Manon Gaudet hates her husband and pities the slaves. Manon is not, however, without her faults. Her pity soon shades into bored petulance. She remembers breakfast in the dining room, served by the beautiful slave Sarah whom she brought as her property into the marriage. Mr. Gaudet has claimed Sarah as his mistress, and there is nothing that either woman can do about it. In fact, Sarah has unwilling borne two children to Mr. Gaudet: a baby girl and a crazed boy Walter who runs through the dining room, sowing chaos in his wake, as Manon questions the sullen Sarah about another slave who has been whipped half-to-death. Clearly only evil can result from the corruption of a slave-holding society. Manon feels it coming; so does every black slave and free white man. The Louisiana cane country is an unforgiving land: filled with tropical diseases and climate extremes, and ruled by an decadent Creole aristocracy. It is fertile ground for a rebellion because the slaves have nothing left to lose. The white men try to compensate for the inevitable by organizing patrols and tightening their control even harder upon the slave population that outnumbers them. Mr. Gaudet takes Manon into his study to pass along some carefully-edited rumors. He has no idea that Manon knows as much about their situation as he does, including the financial information that he tries to hide from her. The Gaudet plantation is deep in debt. Manon thinks of her elderly mother in New Orleans. If her mother were to die, Manon's inheritance would be enough to give her financial independence. Except for one drawback: she herself is the property of her husband. All of her property automatically becomes his. She wishes she could poison him: this dull and cruel man whom she barely knew when she first married him, full of naiveté. But rebellion is coming, and so is yellow fever in New Orleans. Manon's world is about to tear itself apart even as it binds her closer to her enigmatic counterpart Sarah. Property is a cool and minimalist book that somehow scales epic themes down to a narrow view of one frightened and angry woman. It's unputdownable, all flowing energy like a malevolent short story. Even though it loses its focus in the end, it's a fascinating read. Property gets three stars out of five, and can be found on Amazon through this link:
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Noteworthy Links: Wonderquest - Science Q/A! The Connection - Tech blog! Author site - John the Eunuch Historical Mystery series, Cozy Mystery List for all your cozy mystery needs, Obsidian Bookshelf - reviews of gay-themed fiction. |
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