The Known World by Edward P.
Jones
Intimate Portrayal Of How The Institution Of Slavery Affected Lives In The South
Set in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began,
Edward P. Joness 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 ones 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

Personal Review: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
The Known World is an unconventional book, the oddest facet for me
being the lack of a main character. Henry Townsend serves as a sort of
focal point, but he dies at the beginning of the novel; equally important are
his wife Caldonia, parents Augustus and Mildred, the overseer Moses, the
slaves Elias, Celeste, Stamford and Alice, the teacher Fern, Henry's former
master William Robbins, and the sheriff John Skiffington and his cousin
Counsel. The secondary cast, of course, is exponentially larger. Then
there is the structure; the narrative jumps around a lot, primarily between
the 1840s and the 1850s, but with some leaps forward or backward in
time.
If you can handle all that, the result is a rich and rewarding read.
This book zeroes in on what one reviewer has called a "footnote of
history": black slaveowners. Sounds like an oxymoron, right? Not so, as it
turns out. If I had to name the #1 best thing about this book, I would say it's
the mature, nuanced way Jones deals with the provocative issue of
slavery. This is no black-and-white book that beats you over the head with
"slavery is wrong!!" by wallowing in descriptions of whippings, rapes, and
families forcibly separated (although at least two of the above are present);
white people are not divided into the Good Guys (all of them volunteers on
the Underground Railroad) and the Bad Guys (all of them racist, greedy
and cruel), nor are blacks stereotyped as the good-hearted but not
necessarily intelligent victims. This leads to what I would call the next best
thing about this book: the authenticity of the characters. (Second best not
because there's any fault with them, but because lots of books have solid
characterization, while very few can take a look at something like slavery in
such a thoughtful and restrained way). It's not just the realistic portrayal of
individuals, each one unique despite the size of the cast, but the way they
relate to one another and their known world feels entirely real. There's no
placeholder for 21st century ideas here; these characters accept their
world as it is, as most real people do, and try to make the best of it. This
book is sometimes heartbreaking, but never revisionist.
Then there's the setting and customs, which feel three-dimensional and
well-researched. Jones doesn't just tell us what the slave cabins look like,
but shows us the family and community life within them. And the dialogue:
not only does it flow well, but it evokes a particular accent without bogging
down in dialect so strong you have to sound out the words. Need I go on?
Although this book has certainly earned its 5 stars, it's not perfect;
unrelated sentences are sometimes added in the middle of paragraphs,
details occasionally contradict one another (I love Jones's specificity
though; he's one to tell you everything from characters' exact ages to the
price of a mule), the jumping around in time can be confusing, and a
couple scenes veer bizarrely into magical realism. Still, this isn't enough to
really detract from the reading experience. My one caveat is, given the

complexity of the book and the number of characters, that readers who try
to go through this one at 10 pages a night before bed are likely to wind up
frustrated; it requires serious attention. Those who have the time should
not be disappointed.
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