The Known World

The Known World by Edward P. Jones

Category: Novel Grade: B+

This book was really popular about a year, even winning a Pulitzer Prize. I avoided it since its about one of the subjects that I usually avoid reading about - slavery. Typically, books about slavery take the approach of rubbing the readers nose in the horrors. They're usually full of floggings, lynchings and the like and, frankly, the gruesome isn't necessary to prove that slavery was a terrible institution. Consequently, first time around, I skipped this book.

Jones has recently published a book of short stories that continue the stories of some of the people in The Known World and, because of that, has been back in the news and the book review journals. As before, the book is a little controversial, but there are reputable reviewers out there who are calling this one of the best novels of the last couple of decades. So I finally gave in and picked the book up.

First, let me warn that this is not an easy book to read. Jones definitely plays fast and loose with both time and place producing a decidedly non-linear book. He's constantly doing brief asides -- he'll be talking about some character and flash forward fifty years to the circumstances of that person's death. Sometimes, he'll introduce a flashback that'll last fifteen or twenty pages. He's telling the stories of dozens of people and, at times, it can be hard to figure out who and when he's talking about.

That said, this is a pretty powerful book. The plot vehicle he uses is to tell the story of a family of free blacks in the South who went on to own a dozen or so slaves of their own. This incongruity of blacks owning blacks is the centerpiece that lets him tell, in some ways, a very mundane story about the lives of slaves and the rigid rules that divide slaves from masters, even when they're both the same race. Surprisingly, the fact that there aren't a lot of histrionics emphasize the moral repugnance of slavery. Jones definitely shows that "gruesome" doesn't have to involve blood and violence -- its just as apparent in the everybody life of a slave.

OK - that sounded really preachy, but, while a difficult read, this book was pretty good. Good enough that, even though I tend not to read about slavery or read short stories, I'll definitely pick up Jones's followup.