BOOK OF THE LITTLE AXE

Another complex, unsung strand in the American story emerges in this historical epic set in two hostile environments near the hinge of the 18th and 19th centuries.

It is the mid-1790s, and while most of the world is undergoing convulsive transition, the Rendón family leads a relatively quiet existence on the island of Trinidad, where Demas, the family patriarch, owns and operates a farm and blacksmithing business. But life for free and propertied black people like the Rendóns is about to undergo major changes as Trinidad’s rule moves from Spanish to English. Rosa, Demas’ headstrong, fiercely intelligent daughter, simmers with restless energy and a yearning for freedom that can’t be contained by her family’s traditional expectations or by the condescension, at best, from the wealthy white colonists. The story of Rosa’s coming-of-age is interwoven with another narrative, set in the early 1830s, in which Rosa, now living in the northwestern United States and married to a Crow chief, is trying to help her son, Victor, recognize his potential as a man. How Rosa got from the Caribbean to the territorial badlands of a new American nation makes up the core of this ambitious work along with the personal "memberings" of Creadon Rampley, a drifter with an obscure past who's drawn to Trinidad in 1810 by the promise of gold. Francis-Sharma ('Til the Well Runs Dry, 2014) forges a persuasively researched account so richly evocative of a relatively obscure corner of history as to make it seem almost phantasmagorical. Still, as enchanting as Francis-Sharma's writing can be, especially in its re-creations of Trinidad and the characterizations of Rosa and her family, the book occasionally hits patches when too many complications and details clog its forward momentum. Sometimes you get impatient for the story to hurry back northward to the frisky, jaunty pace of Rosa and Victor’s harrowing adventures.

Some illuminating history and vivid set pieces emerge from a frustratingly cluttered narrative.