2 out of 4 stars
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In 1833, twelve-year-old Tobey witnesses his father being taken away in chains; not long after, his mother is severely beaten and put up for sale for teaching him how to read. Enslaved and without family, Tobey feels he doesn’t have much to lose and decides to make a run for it. Soon after, though, he finds himself in the hands of a new master. Consequently, his path to freedom begins to look bleaker up until 1860 when Abraham Lincoln proposes a separate colony for slaves. Tobey carefully forms a plan to get his wife and two daughters to freedom. Unfortunately, one of his daughters is brutally murdered by a gang of white supremacists. After persevering through decades of abuse, inequality, and inhumane treatment as well as finding the disembodied remains of his fifteen-year-old daughter, Tobey snaps. To what lengths will Tobey go to avenge the senseless killing of his daughter? Will he get away with the act of revenge he plans to exact?
From Slave to Master to Defendant: A Slave’s Quest For Equality by Fred Wilkins is a captivating historical fiction novel that gives readers an in-depth view of what it was like to be a slave in the years leading up to and during the Civil War.
Because we meet Tobey when he is young and the narrative spans several decades, we get the sense that we truly know the protagonist and those around him through different circumstances and stages in their lives. I really appreciated the level of character development in this novel. What I appreciated most is the historical accuracy and how informative the narrative is. It is clear that the author did his research, as the narrative expertly depicts the disparity between the southern economy and its landowners with the indignity and dehumanization of the slaves during the Civil War. I especially liked that towards the end, the narrative gets more intense leading up to a climatic ending with plot twists that I hadn’t anticipated.
All in all, I enjoyed the storyline of this novel; however, I did encounter a few issues that stopped me from being fully immersed in the narrative. The first issue is that there isn’t enough dialogue—written in the third-person point of view, the narrator’s voice is the dominant sometimes overbearing factor. The narrator reports the events, characters’ actions, feelings, and emotions so often that there are pages upon pages filled with description and narration with little to no dialogue in sight, which ultimately slows the pace of the novel. As a result, most times, I felt rather detached from parts of the story and distanced emotionally from the characters. This brings me to the next issue: there is no balance between the ‘telling and showing’. The author’s writing style leans more on telling the narrative than showing that coupled with the frequent use of passive voice, it felt as though I was reading a history textbook at times. That is not to say that there is anything wrong with history textbooks, but when I choose to read fiction, I expect to feel present and involved with the characters and their story.
Another issue is that there is an inconsistency with the slaves’ dialect. There are times when there is little to no dialect in their speech/dialogue, only for it to all of a sudden become more pronounced towards the end of the novel, which made me question why the specific character suddenly has a strong dialect. Was this a tactic to employ sympathy from listeners/other characters? Or was the author undecided on whether he wanted to use dialect and/or the level of dialect?
There are parts of the narrative that are explored in depth that I did not think were integral to the plot. An example of that would be Max Sunder’s (a planter and slave owner) very detailed family history going back to his grandfather. Another is when the narrator tells us exactly what the worst parts of Tobey’s earlier years at the Winkaleer Plantation were, and then on the same page and the next two, Tobey animatedly describes the same thing. This also slows the pace of the story. Additional editing and revision could bring the 344-page count down considerably with no noticeable omissions. I did find a few errors that mostly have to do with dialogue tags enclosed in quotation marks.
Overall, I am happy with the historical information I gained from reading this novel and would recommend it to those interested in learning more about the years before and during America’s Civil war. The plot itself is compelling, and the author’s writing in some areas is well-written and impressive. However, the flaws mentioned above dulled my experience. I fought with myself between a 2- and 3-star rating. If it weren’t for the issues mentioned, I believe the book would be worth 4-stars. Ultimately, I have to be true to the experience I had reading this novel, which is why I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars.
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From Slave To Master To Defendant
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