Valerie Martin — Property

Abacus 2003 Paperback, 224pp. Set in the surreal heat of the antebellum South during a slave rebellion, 'Property' takes the form of a dramatic monologue, bringing to the page a voice rarely heard in American fiction: the voice of a woman slave holder. Manon Gaudet is pretty and petulant, self-absorbed and bored and unhappily married. She has come to a sugar plantation north of New Orleans as a bride, bringing with her a prized piece of property, the young slave Sarah, only to see Sarah become her husband’s mistress and bear his son, Walter. Manon longs to be free of her suffocating domestic situation. As the whispers of a slave rebellion grow louder and more threatening with bloody uprisings, no one can be sure which way Sarah will turn if the attacks reach the plantation . Manon speaks to us of her past and her present, her longings and dreams – an uncensored, pitch-perfect voice from the heart of moral darkness. (ISBN: 9780349115832). Good.