The Known World

published	September 1st 2006 by Amistad
first published	2003
binding	Paperback
isbn	0061159174 (isbn13: 9780061159176)
pages	388
setting	United States
literary awards	Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2004); Book Critics Circle Award; International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
description	Set in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel, The Known World, is a masterpiece of ov...more [close] Set in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel, The Known World, is a masterpiece of overlapping plot lines, time shifts, and heartbreaking details of life under slavery. Caldonia Townsend is an educated black slaveowner, the widow of a well-loved young farmer named Henry, whose parents had bought their own freedom, and then freed their son, only to watch him buy himself a slave as soon as he had saved enough money. Although a fair and gentle master by the standards of the day, Henry Townsend had learned from former master about the proper distance to keep from one's property. After his death, his slaves wonder if Caldonia will free them. When she fails to do so, but instead breaches the code that keeps them separate from her, a little piece of Manchester County begins to unravel. Impossible to rush through, The Known World is a complex, beautifully written novel with a large cast of characters, rewarding the patient reader with unexpected connections, some reaching into the present day. --Regina Marler The story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline. But when death takes him unexpectedly, his widow, Caldonia, can't uphold the estate's order and chaos ensues. [close]
date added	08-29-06 edit book

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Meredith rated it:

10/24/07

Read in January, 2006

This book is so great b/c of its ability to express all of the moral complexities of slavery pre-civil war. Duty, religion, morality, justice, law, success, conformity, experience……all contribute to the intricacies of slavery. The main characters revolve around Henry, who is a former slave that upholds an estate of slaves. Other characters are a God-fearing slave owner, a slave owner who falls in love with a black woman and has a child, and an educated black woman. Although rare, I had never...more This book is so great b/c of its ability to express all of the moral complexities of slavery pre-civil war. Duty, religion, morality, justice, law, success, conformity, experience……all contribute to the intricacies of slavery. The main characters revolve around Henry, who is a former slave that upholds an estate of slaves. Other characters are a God-fearing slave owner, a slave owner who falls in love with a black woman and has a child, and an educated black woman. Although rare, I had never known that blacks had owned slaves. It is masterfully written and draws you in, making you imagine what you would think and do during that time…and what you could convince yourself to believe lessening your negative reaction to the idea of slavery (or maybe just not allowing yourself to see slavery’s impact on the individual life as what it really was….crippling). While at the same time, you get a glimpse of what it must have been like to be a slave, from being a woman who is stripped down so that a white man can look at her to see if he wants to buy her and take her away from her family to being physically abused. There are contradictions and “well-meant” things that did not turn out well. This is a great book to digest and discuss. I love a historical, relational book that makes you think!! The author also writes about historical documents and events that allow you to believe it actually happened.

“Despite vowing never to own a slave, Skiffington had no trouble doing his job to keep the institution of slavery going, an institution even God himself had sanctioned throughout the Bible. Skiffington had learned from his father how much solace there was in separation God’s law from Caesar’s law. ‘Render your body unto them,’ his father had taught, ‘but know your soul belongs to God.’ As long as Skiffington and Winifred lived within the light that came from God’s law, from the Bible, nothing on earth, not even his duty as a sheriff to the Caesars, could deny them the kingdom of God. ‘We will not own slaves,’ Skiffington promised God, and he promised each morning he went to his knees to pray. Though everyone in the country saw Minerva the wedding present as their property, the Skiffingtons did not feel they owned her, not in the way whites and few blacks owned slaves” (this was written about a young girl taken by her parents that they came to own)

“Henry, the law will protect you as a master to your slave, and it will not flinch when it protects you. That protection lasts from here all the way to the death of that property. But the law expects you to know what is master and what is slave. And it does not matter if you are not much darker than your slave. The law is blind to that. You are the master and that is all the law wants to know. The law will come to you and stand behind you. But if you roll around and be a playmate to your property, and your property turns round and bites you, the law will come to you still, will but it not come with the full heart and all the deliberate speed you need. You will have pointed to the line that separates you from your property and told your property that the line does not matter.” (Henry goes on to slap his slave right after and say “why don’t you never do what I tell you? N--, you never do. You just do what I tell you from now on.”)

“How could anyone, white or not white, think that he could hold on to his land and servants and his future if he thought himself no higher than what he owned.”

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