Lois ’s answer to “I have not finished the book, but wonder if a large segment of people would feel excluded reading a…” > Likes and Comments

The main character of this novel is a real person who existed historically. I'm familiar with how she existed in reality, not in a work of fiction and my feelings relate to the real person she was.
Holding people in captivity is horribly abusive. Chattel Slavery was horribly abusive. All of it, every single 'owner' who participated.
The only place good or decent or kind slave captors exist ONLY in the minds of white supremacists.
If you don't understand that you are a slavery apologist and white supremacist.
Imagine trying to argue with the descendant of those who died in the Holocaust that a book about a specific Nazi Death Camp operator who wasn't abusive and had a good heart. He just worked in a Death Camp. Good people weren't Nazi's or slave 'owners' and don't hold other human beings in captivity.
The subject of this novel did hold human beings in captivity. People who she recognized as human beings.
Good people didn't hold enslaved peoples in captivity.
There are NO good people who did.
Period.

Thank you for your wonderful answer, Lois. You answered the exact concern I had when I heard of this book. I'm wondering if you did read it since your original comment and whether you think it is worth reading, cognizant of all the points you mention?

What an excellent perspective and thanks for writing it. I don't think I want to read yet another book without any redeeming factors to bring it beyond "just a white supremacist myth"

I was under the impression that Europeans also were slaveholders - I know the English were!?

You will DEFINITELY not like this book then, Lois. I wondered often while reading it if this was slavery apologist literature because the author certainly portrays her as very humane and loving toward her slaves but I can't find anywhere in actual historical accounts if this is true or not. Sounds like it is not true. Thanks for your comments!

Like E Stolar above, I'm curious whether you finished the book. I don't think it's apologist.... and I also think it's really a big task to write about slavery where a white woman is the protagonist, I agree with you. But, to be fair to the author, the protagonist has a lot of enlightening moments where she discovers the concerns of her plantation slaves. She sees them as a means to an end, and really doesn't understand why several of the slaves won't trust her or befriend her... I think she's portrayed as naive in a lot of ways. I really don't think it's apologist, just telling her story. That said, if this book is just hard to stomach for a descendant of enslaved people, I totally get that.