A novel that condemns white colonialism, offering crucial insight into life for American Revolution–era women.
Inspired by a family document, Bingham writes the story of her ancestor Margaret Erskine, who was captured by the Shawnee people in 1779.
As the book begins, Margaret and her husband and children leave their home in Virginia on horseback to "discover" America. Margaret believes all the prejudices about Native Americans held by white settlers; she both fears them and thinks them inferior. On their way west, her party is ambushed by the Shawnee. The violence of the attack stuns Margaret, but her remarkable resolve to live testifies to her inner strength. Claimed by the Shawnee as one of their own, Margaret must adapt to a radically different way of life, and her open-mindedness and adaptability enable her to assimilate quickly. Learning the language, adopting Shawnee dress, and laboring alongside her new Shawnee family, Margaret finds that her knowledge of medicinal herbs and ability to nurse ailing infants and elderly people back to health set her apart from other captives. She soon realizes she’s pregnant with her husband’s child and must undergo the Shawnee birthing ritual—delivering her son alone, in a hut, far away from the encampment. The infant’s paternity is the subject of rumor, and her son’s Shawnee instincts raise further suspicion. After four years, Margaret is ransomed by her friends in Union, Virginia, but her deeply felt reluctance to return is reinforced by their immediate suspicion of her son’s parentage, leading to an isolation from her peers she never truly overcomes. Although Bingham’s plain prose lacks subtlety, the novel paints a compelling portrait of womanhood in this era. Crucially, the author depicts the violence of the period as integral to the colonial project, dismissing any propagandistic delusions of one-sided "savagery" and instead depicting each culture without romance or bias.
A novel that condemns white colonialism, offering crucial insight into life for American Revolution–era women.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781885983367
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Turtle Point
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
IN THE NEWS
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
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