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College Drive

Monday-Thursday

8:00 A.M. - 8:00 P.M.

Friday

8:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.

Saturday

8:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.

Closed Sunday

Roberts Drive

Monday-Thursday

9:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.

Friday

8:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.

Closed Saturday and Sunday

August review by  Kathy Edwards

The Known World by Edward P. Jones, Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and author of the National Book Award Finalist Lost in the City. Harper Collins, 2003.  

     The last book I read for summer reading pleasure was The Known World.  I thoroughly enjoyed Jones’ short story book Lost in the City, so for 20% off a paperback, I plunged into this book with much joy!  I was amply rewarded.  The book is about freed slaves in Virginia that accumulated property and owned slaves.  The story notes that this was a rarity, but did happen in certain places before the Civil War.  The book, (according to Jones in his introduction and interview) was scattered with some historical facts and intertwined with fictitious characters, some based on people he had known himself and heard about through his family stories.  The book begins with Moses, a black overseer of a freed black slaves’ (Henry Townsend) mini farm.  Moses is surveying the fields after the slaves have gone back to their cabins.  Moses has known no other life than slavery.  His master, Henry, who was freed by his own parents as a young child, has just died, leaving his widow Caldonia all his property including slaves.  She turns to Moses for help.  She wants to free the slaves, but is discouraged by her other freed family members who remind her “they are in a class of their own”.  The book is filled with a variety of characters, many well developed, some which we only catch glimpses of now and again.   The book tells the tale of the lives of the freed and the enslaved with encounters of white oppression that crop up to remind the freed that they are always threatened.   Henry’s father Augustus is stopped on the road by a group of white men, and upon producing his papers proclaiming him a free citizen, he is promptly chained and sold to slave traders down south – his mule killed, wagon burnt, and papers destroyed.  Little is done to find him until the most powerful man in the county, William Robbins, and the sheriff “who upholds the law no matter to whom the law is for” offer rewards for his return and make countless inquiries to his whereabouts.  Tragedies abound throughout the book and struggles never cease.  The book ends with Moses, broken down, without family or friend, once again, alone, still a slave, being cared for by other slaves that he had himself oppressed from his position of power as overseer.

     For me, the book could have been longer and some of the stories about the characters could have been further developed.  Sometimes, Jones skips around and gets you so involved in one character and then just leaves the character while he starts new stories about other characters.  I enjoyed the book; it gave me a new perspective on slavery and the south as well as brought to mind the constant and consistent terror the freed slaves and slaves lived under while trying to survive in a hostile world. I do look forward to his next book.  

Newsletter Home

What's New

Reading Groups

Suggested Reading

Faculty/Staff Spotlight

Ashland Community and Technical College Library

Boyd County Public Library

Newsletter Archives

Library Hours

College Drive

Monday-Thursday

8:00 A.M. - 8:00 P.M.

Friday

8:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.

Saturday

8:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.

Closed Sunday

Roberts Drive

Monday-Thursday

9:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.

Friday

8:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.

Closed Saturday and Sunday

August review by  Kathy Edwards

The Known World by Edward P. Jones, Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and author of the National Book Award Finalist Lost in the City. Harper Collins, 2003.  

     The last book I read for summer reading pleasure was The Known World.  I thoroughly enjoyed Jones’ short story book Lost in the City, so for 20% off a paperback, I plunged into this book with much joy!  I was amply rewarded.  The book is about freed slaves in Virginia that accumulated property and owned slaves.  The story notes that this was a rarity, but did happen in certain places before the Civil War.  The book, (according to Jones in his introduction and interview) was scattered with some historical facts and intertwined with fictitious characters, some based on people he had known himself and heard about through his family stories.  The book begins with Moses, a black overseer of a freed black slaves’ (Henry Townsend) mini farm.  Moses is surveying the fields after the slaves have gone back to their cabins.  Moses has known no other life than slavery.  His master, Henry, who was freed by his own parents as a young child, has just died, leaving his widow Caldonia all his property including slaves.  She turns to Moses for help.  She wants to free the slaves, but is discouraged by her other freed family members who remind her “they are in a class of their own”.  The book is filled with a variety of characters, many well developed, some which we only catch glimpses of now and again.   The book tells the tale of the lives of the freed and the enslaved with encounters of white oppression that crop up to remind the freed that they are always threatened.   Henry’s father Augustus is stopped on the road by a group of white men, and upon producing his papers proclaiming him a free citizen, he is promptly chained and sold to slave traders down south – his mule killed, wagon burnt, and papers destroyed.  Little is done to find him until the most powerful man in the county, William Robbins, and the sheriff “who upholds the law no matter to whom the law is for” offer rewards for his return and make countless inquiries to his whereabouts.  Tragedies abound throughout the book and struggles never cease.  The book ends with Moses, broken down, without family or friend, once again, alone, still a slave, being cared for by other slaves that he had himself oppressed from his position of power as overseer.

     For me, the book could have been longer and some of the stories about the characters could have been further developed.  Sometimes, Jones skips around and gets you so involved in one character and then just leaves the character while he starts new stories about other characters.  I enjoyed the book; it gave me a new perspective on slavery and the south as well as brought to mind the constant and consistent terror the freed slaves and slaves lived under while trying to survive in a hostile world. I do look forward to his next book.