The Known World by Edward P. Jones (3 stars)

The subject of this book is intriguing - it largely focuses on the story of slave-owning free blacks in Virginia in the 1850s. The idea of free blacks owning slaves had never even occurred to me before picking up this book. Jones explores the complicated relationships between whites, free blacks, slaves, politics and the law in a way that eroded the simplistic view I had of slavery in America at that time, and won him the Pulitzer.

The issues are complex, and I still find myself ill-equipped to answer the question 'Why would free blacks own slaves?'. Part of the answer is they were buying freedom for their families. A talented slave who was permitted to make money might eventually buy his/her freedom with money earned from making furniture, boots etc. and go on saving to buy freedom for his/her family. Once their family was secure, free blacks were looking to expand their wealth and secure their future by buying land and farming. Slavery dominated the labour market, and I imagine it was difficult to find labourers that could be paid a wage, so free blacks would buy slaves to work the land.

Jones painfully demonstrates that a free slave's hold on freedom is very tenuous - there was much money to be made in kidnapping free slaves and selling them back into slavery. With the only proof of freedom being 'free-papers' carried by the slave, these could easily be destroyed and there were plenty of unscrupulous buyers available.

Although the subject matter was interesting, the writing good, and Jones deals with the subject matter thoughtfully, I didn't enjoy this book very much. The writing constantly jumps around in time, from weeks to decades, often in the same paragraph and there are a huge number of characters, which are difficult to keep track of. The book finally seemed to be building to a climax in the final pages, but the narrative style kept me strangely disconnected from the events so I didn't have a burning desire to read on.

3 stars.