Freeman
| Freeman | |
| Leonard Pitts Jr. | |
| Agate (2012) | |
| Rating: | **** |
| Tags: | Historical, War |
Freeman
, the new novel by Leonard Pitts, Jr., takes place in the first few months following the Confederate surrender and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Upon learning of Lee's surrender, Sam--a runaway slave who once worked for the Union Army--decides to leave his safe haven in Philadelphia and set out on foot to return to the war-torn South. What compels him on this almost-suicidal course is the desire to find his wife, the mother of his only child, whom he and their son left behind 15 years earlier on the Mississippi farm to which they all "belonged."
At the same time, Sam's wife, Tilda, is being forced to walk at gunpoint with her owner and two of his other slaves from the charred remains of his Mississippi farm into Arkansas, in search of an undefined place that would still respect his entitlements as slaveowner and Confederate officer.
The book's third main character, Prudence, is a fearless, headstrong white woman of means who leaves her Boston home for Buford, Mississippi, to start a school for the former bondsmen, and thus honor her father's dying wish.
At bottom,
Freeman
is a love story--sweeping, generous, brutal, compassionate, patient--about the feelings people were determined to honor, despite the enormous constraints of the times. It is this aspect of the book that should ensure it a strong, vocal, core audience of African-American women, who will help propel its likely critical acclaim to a wider audience. At the same time, this book addresses several themes that are still hotly debated today, some 145 years after the official end of the Civil War. Like
Cold Mountain
,
Freeman
illuminates the times and places it describes from a fresh perspective, with stunning results. It has the potential to become a classic addition to the literature dealing with this period. Few other novels so powerfully capture the pathos and possibility of the era particularly as it reflects the ordeal of the black slaves grappling with the promise--and the terror--of their new status as free men and women.
Copyright© 2012 by Leonard Pitts, Jr.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pitts, Leonard.
Freeman / Leonard Pitts.
p. cm.
Summary: “At the end of the Civil War, an escaped slave first returns to his old plantation and then walks across the ravaged South in search of his lost wife”--Provided by the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-57284-699-9 (ebook)
1.
Freedmen--Fiction. 2.
African-Americans--Fiction. 3.
Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)--Fiction. 4.
Southern States--History--1865-1877--Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3616.I92F74 2012
813’.6--dc23
2012009592
Bolden is an imprint of Agate Publishing. Agate books are available in bulk at discount prices. For more information, go to
agatepublishing.com
.
A NOVEL
BOLDEN
AN
A
GATE
IMPRINT
CHICAGO
For Marilyn
(
and all the Tildas everywhere
)
His first thought was of her.
Outside, something heavy thudded the sky and the old house shuddered hard as if its floorboards had been stomped upon by giants. He put his book aside and swung down from the bed where he had been resting, fully dressed. Maybe it was thunder. The skies had been leaden all day.
But thunder rolls and this was a percussive boom such as he had heard many times on the battlefield. This was cannon fire. Then, overtop the cannons, came the sound of bells, every kind of bell there was, fire bells, church bells, school bells, all pealing at the same time in a perfect confusion of joy. And all at once he felt it, hope fluttering in his chest like a butterfly in a cage. It was difficult to breathe.
Lifting the oil lamp from the stand by his bed, he made his way down the dark hallway, down the stairs, each step taking him deeper into pure bedlam. When he emerged onto the stoop, he found his landlady, the widow Brewster, standing among a small knot of people, watching the crowded avenue flow by. Her face, usually so pinched with contempt for him and every other living thing, glowed with beatific light. Tears shone on her cheeks. At the sound of his approach, she turned and, to his great surprise, smiled. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought her beautiful.
“It’s over,” she said, and her voice trembled under the weight of just those two words. She said it again: “It is over.”
His mouth fell open but not a sound came out. A trail of fire sizzled across the sky and broke high above them in a star of silver and gold. The
impromptu parade surging past, the shopkeepers and floor sweepers, the countermen and maids, every Negro in Philadelphia, it seemed, all craned their heads as one to look, point, and exclaim. All of them chattering at once and waving tiny American flags. Someone lifted three cheers for the United States. Edwina Brewster hugged him. Actually wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed. It was over. The war was done.
And his first thought was of her.
He had called her Tilda. She had called him Sam.
These were names they had given one another for their own private use and amusement and they were, he thought, the names truest to who they really were. But they’d each had other names.
When he was born, his mother—a careworn face, barely recalled—had named him Henry. The woman who bought him when he was seven had told him she already had a Henry on her place and did not want the confusion. She had named him Hark. When that woman died eight years later, leaving no heirs, he was sold at an estate auction and bought by a woman who disliked his name yet again. All her slaves were named after figures in classical Greek literature, she explained, not looking at him as a footman accepted her gloves and another unhitched the horses from her fine rig.
She appraised him with a brief glance, a gangly, frightened boy, lying manacled in the back of the wagon, hair unkempt and flecked with bits of straw. “You’ll be Perseus,” she announced. And then she walked away.
He was still looking after her when the footman produced a skeleton key and opened the ring of metal around his wrist. “You think that’s bad,” he grumbled. “She call me Zeus.”
Later that same day, he was sitting in front of the cabin he had been given, wearing the rough clothes he had been issued, eating with his fingers from the bowl of cornbread and greens someone had handed him, when he felt eyes on him. He looked up and beheld her for the first time. He almost dropped his bowl.
She stood hip thrust with one hand akimbo. He judged that she was his age or close to it, but she already had a woman’s curves, her thighs round and strong beneath the faded house dress, her breasts straining against the plain fabric. He felt a stiffening in his groin and moved the bowl to cover it.
“She call you Perseus, hmm?” Her smile was gentle and amused. “That woman and her Greek.”
“What she call you?” he stammered. His throat was so dry it hurt.
“Danae,” she said. “Do I look like some Danae to you?”
She looked like…beauty. Lush black hair plaited in a single braid that fell back from a dark, radiant face. Her eyes were almond shaped, her lips full, and, just now, pursed in thought. In that very instant, he loved her and knew that he would love her always.
“I’m gon’ call you Sam,” she said finally. “That all right with you?”
“Yes,” he said, uncomfortably aware that anything she wished to call him would be all right with him. Then out of nowhere, he heard himself say, “And I’m gon’ call you Tilda. You mind that?”
“Tilda,” she said, contemplating the darkening sky. Then she looked at him and smiled. “No, I don’t mind that. I kind of like that.” And he felt something warm break open inside his chest.