The Known World

by Edward P. Jones

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. It's a story about freed Black slaves, who, in time, owned their own slaves. It introduces the people around them, their dreams and expectations. Ideas about what was right or what was possible. On one hand I loved it, as it wanders into grey areas of right and wrong, of separation of heart and mind. It paints a picture of humanity in a certain place and time, and it's beautiful but mostly tragic.

The hard part of this book is how brutal people are to each other. It's hard to see so vividly how awful people can be. Maybe it was naive to expect something good to happen to people trying their best, in this sort of novel of this sort of setting.

"As the days dwindled down to the time Henry's parents would take him into freedom, Robbins was surprised to know that he would miss the boy. He had not been so surprised about his feelings for a black human being since realizing he loved Philomena. He had gotten used to seeing Henry standing in the lane, waiting as Robbins came back from some business or from visiting Philomena and their children. the boy had a calming way about him and stood with all the patience in the world as Robbins, often recovering from an episode of a storm in his head, made his slow way from the road to the lane and up to the house. Fathers waited that way for prodigal sons, Robbins once thought."

"The kiss went through the breast, through skin and bone, and came to the cage that protected the heart. Now the kiss, like so many kisses, had all manner of keys, but it, like so many kisses, was forgetful, and it could not find the right key to the cage. So in the end, frustrated, desperate, the kiss squeezed through the bars and kissed Mildred's heart. She woke immediately and she knew her husband was gone forever. All breath went and she was seized with such a pain that she had to come to her feet. But the room and the house were not big enough to contain her pain and she stumbled out of the room, out and down the stairs, out through the door that Augustus, as usual, had left open. The dog watched her from the hearth. Only in the yard could she begin to breathe again. And breath brought tears. She fell to her knees, out in the open yard, in her nightclothes, something Augustus would not have approved of.

Augustus died on Wednesday."