The true story of how a female slave in the south escaped captivity with her slave husband by dressing up and passing as a young white man, with her husband playing the part of his slave.
Because this is a true story, there is a lot of documentation out there and even a book written by the people themselves. The author of this book tells their story in a dramatic way and for the most part it is well written.
I was hooked into reading this book based on the premise of the escape, and like a good heist movie I was looking forward to reliving it – all the tension, the preparation, and the timing of it.
However most of this is covered in the first third or half of the book. The author spends a lot of time diving deep into the other people around the escaping couple – their owners, the people their owners knew, the city government in power at the time, the history of the innkeeper who they visited during one leg of the journey. These historical tangents (they felt like that to me) took away the tensions of the escape, and were often pretty dry.
The last half of the book is all about the effects of the escape, and for me this was the least interesting part of the book. Once the couple has made it safely out, there is very little tension to the story and it felt more like reading raw facts from a history book.
So overall I thought the book was worth the read for the first half or so, but I could have done with some judicious editing in the second half.
Next I am reading Wellness by Nathan Hill.
