This National Book Award winner was written by an environmental historian with a focus on Black history as revealed by place and landscape. This project added many layers to her foundational grounding, building in textile history and cultural aspects of slave-owning and being enslaved. The research revolved around a seed sack passed down from an enslaved woman to her daughter, eventually winding up with the recipient’s granddaughter.
This descendant, Ruth Middleton, embroidered the story of Rose (the mother) on the sack in 1921. She tells of Rose packing the sack for her daughter, Ashley, upon the eve of Ashley’s sale/separation after the death of their owner. The sack contained a tattered dress, three handfuls of pecans, a braid of Rose’s hair, and her “Love always.”
Overly academic droning in the introduction and first chapter of the book nearly derailed my reading. However, I felt the story of the sack and its contents took off in Chapter 2, and from then on, I was transported in place and time to South Carolina of the 19th century.
Miles’s writing is poetic and her analysis of clothing, hair, food, labor, family separation, and other aspects of the lives of the enslaved are insightful and not the least bit pedantic. I learned about how the slave-grown cotton became woven in the North into rough cloth to provide ill-fitting, low-quality clothing to further degrade those in bondage in the South.
The history of the pecan tree, a wild native plant successfully cultivated due to the efforts of an enslaved man, known only by his first name, was also a revelation to me. Of course, the entire idea of a group of people treating another group of people as property always provokes a range of emotions when the full scope of the horrors entailed in the practice are revealed in shocking detail, as Miles shares.
A couple weaknesses in the book are some repetitiveness that could have been omitted to tighten up the narrative, and the insufficient genealogical exploration of the family involved. In an essay appended to the story, Miles indicates that another writer had located some of Rose’s descendants.
The two genealogists Miles hired focused only on Ruth Middleton, who had only a single child, a daughter who did not have children. But Ruth had siblings, her mother had siblings, and perhaps even Ashley had siblings. A broader exploration of the fate of Rose’s descendants, the ones besides Ruth, who carry on her legacy, would have enriched the later chapters immeasurably.
Eilene Lyon 
This sounds interesting. Personal stories really do bring history to life. I’m always fascinated in the ways textiles have a story to tell(or convey) in history. I hadn’t really thought of it as a tool in degradation, but sadly, it makes total sense.
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It’s like making prisoners wear orange jumpsuits or other outfits that scream “incarceration”! Just having dark skin wasn’t enough.
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It’s hard to imagine living with that mentality…
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The enslaved in Charleston also had to wear badges in order to be on the streets, not unlike the Star of David that Jews had to wear in Nazi Germany.
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We seem to allow history to keep repeating itself.
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We most certainly do, often for the worse.
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I love reading about history in a novel, bringing the times to life for the reader.
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This is actually a nonfiction work. But I also enjoy historical fiction as well.
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That’s what I meant. It’s nonfiction but written in a story, no? Not just dates and names and events…
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It’s a combination of story and analysis.
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Ah, OK. And your book? How would you classify it?
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My book is a nonfiction story. I do not enter the picture at all. It is strictly set in the past. Not the case with Miles’s book. She is very much in the picture and looking at the past from today’s perch.
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That’s what I was thinking. Nonfiction historical story. That she is part of hers just makes it more recent 😉
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This sounds like a book I’d be interested in. I can deal with a little bit of academic droning to set the stage for the personal story to come.
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One member of our book club liked the introduction (though she hasn’t finished the book. In fact, I was the only one who did finish it!). I really learned a lot and found it a good read.
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Hmm, the fact that you’re the only person in your book club to have finished the book says something.
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