Although I rarely respond aloud to reviews, a rather good recent post took issue with a number of things in the novel that seemed, to the reviewer, to be a stretch.  I would like to respond, as the reviewer was intelligent and thoughtful.

He writes:    

The reader is asked to believe, for instance, that Cassius, a man who had just a few days in which to learn how to read and write, is able to do both so well that he is able to comprehend all the nuances of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar when he steals his master’s copy of the play and to forge the passes he needs to seemingly authorize his travel away from Sweetsmoke on his own.

In fact, Cassius begins to learn to read over a three week time period back in 1857.  That was five years before the novel begins, and in the ensuing five years, Cassius continues his reading education with Emoline (you can find that information on page 48).  I took liberties with the timing of Cassius coming into contact with the texts of THE ILIAD as well as JULIUS CAESAR.  All writers learn to telescope time from Shakespeare, and I wanted to give the reader an opportunity to experience Cassius’s initial attempts to grapple with Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer, so I placed this within the context of the narrative.  Realistically, he would have been likely to read THE ILIAD earlier, with Emoline’s assistance.  But I took the liberty as I wanted the reader to experience Cassius’s first encounter with the god Apollo.  Five years seems to me to be more than enough time to take on a first reading of Julius Caesar, as well as more than enough time to learn to forge passes. 

But perhaps the book’s biggest stretch is the relative ease with which Cassius makes his way to Lee’s army in Maryland and back to the plantation. If it had been this easy to cross into a Union state in 1862 there would likely have been no slaves left in the South by the end of the war some three years later.

It is important to understand how things worked at that time.  There was a surprising amount of travel by slaves, from plantation to plantation, for instance, particularly if a slave had an ‘abroad’ wife or husband, or into town on errands for the master.  They would carry a pass from the master during those journeys.  Slaves would sneak off the plantation at night to hunt for food to supplement their diets, slipping into the woods to check their traps.  Slaves had multiple opportunities to run.  So why didn’t they?  Slaves were controlled by fear.  Fear was their constant companion, fear of the law, fear of the patrollers, fear of the master and the overseer.  Fear was drilled into them by random violence, by the teaching of religion and by the threat of losing their loved ones through sales to other states or plantations.  Slaves were kept ignorant intentionally, which expanded their sense of fear.  Knowledge is power, and Cassius’s knowledge increases as he learns to read.  Cassius overcomes his ignorance of the world beyond the rim of Sweetsmoke by taking Hoke’s maps.  He has help reaching the railroad, traveling in the company of a freed slave who is well-known throughout the area, and, of course, through that part of the journey he carries a pass from Ellen Howard.  Once Cassius connects with the Confederate slaves on the railroad, he is able to blend in as if he is one of them.  It is historical fact that there were slaves who supported the Confederacy.  Cassius is able to blend in again when he joins the Confederate quartermaster’s wagon train.  He is in grave danger when he enters the small town near the border of Maryland, and this is where he encounters the abolitionists.  Once across the Potomac, he finds himself among soldiers of the Union army.  When I did the research, I needed to convince myself that Cassius’s travel north was doable before I was willing to write it.   

His return to the plantation is specifically based on the information we know about how Harriet Tubman was able to make 19 crossings over 11 years into the slave state of Maryland to bring slaves north, via the Underground Railroad.  She never lost a slave on any of her journeys.  I have intentionally paralleled Cassius’s secret foray back to Sweetsmoke with her methods. 

I showed this information to the reviewer and asked his permission to post it, and he graciously consented.  While I’m not sure that my answers change his opinion, I appreciate his graciousness and I enjoyed his thoughtful review.   

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 3:26 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.