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Like her Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece, Beloved, this novel revolves around a mother's agonizing sacrifice. A Dutch trader named Jacob Vaark travels to a Virginia plantation to collect on a debt. Lacking funds, the borrower offers Vaark flesh -- a trade Vaark is disinclined to accept. Men whose fortunes rest upon the backs of forced labor are weak, he feels. But then a woman steps forward and pleads with him to accept her daughter. "Please, Senhor. Not me," she asks him. "Take her. Take my daughter."
A Mercy could have taken a lurid turn here -- as in life it perhaps often did -- but Morrison steers her novel in a more unexpected direction. Vaark, we learn, is moved to accept the girl because he, too, was an orphan once. He remembered "well [orphans] and his own sad teeming in the markets, lanes, alleyways and ports of every region he traveled." The girl, whose name is Florens, is also not the first one he has taken in. If his wife's children continue to die shortly after their births, she might not be his last.
The arrival of the girl on Vaark's farm immediately alters the ecology of relationships that have developed there. Lina, a Native American slave, takes Florens in and protects her. Sorrow, a hardworking foundling who has arrived in Vaark's care already raped and ill, becomes jealous of her preferred treatment. A blacksmith desires Florens; she reciprocates with a passion that is almost feral. In the end, after Vaark dies of the pox, his wife puts her life in Florens's black hands.
As in so many Morrison novels, especially the later ones, readers must work to assemble this narrative. It unfolds out of order, piecemeal, alternating from character to character, some of whom, like Florens, speak directly to the reader. Others Morrison speaks for in her magisterial third person.
It was William Faulkner who laid bare the possibilities of this storytelling method in The Sound and the Fury. Jolting the reader from character to character meant a narrative could arise in the background, within the relationships between its characters. Excepting Louise Erdrich, no American novelist has grasped the spooky logic of how to tell a story this way quite like Morrison.
There are risks, however, to this narrative method, ones to which A Mercy falls prey dismayingly often. In the opening pages it is difficult to understand who is speaking, who is being observed by whom. One needs to read on to sort out such minor mysteries, but Morrison soon replaces them with new ones.
Florens's sections, which address an offstage "you," like a love letter or lyric poem, describe a journey through the woods of some urgency. Is she escaping? Is she returning to her mother? Morrison doesn't unpack this enigma until the book is two-thirds done. To put these questions on hold in the mind while pushing deeper into A Mercy requires far more than suspending disbelief. It means the reader must have absolute faith in Morrison as a storyteller.
She has certainly earned this trust. In Beloved and Song of Solomon she crafted unquestionable masterpieces about the bonds of motherhood. Love and Jazz evoked the fine line between passion's refining fire and its destructive blazes. In her characters' voices we often hear the singular sound of American language.
Morrison is also -- one cannot say this often enough -- a beautiful writer. Like Michael Ondaatje, who possesses a similar disdain for linear narrative, Morrison understands that if she is going to make her readers travel sideways, it is only fair to give them lights to stumble by. "When the women faded," she writes in A Mercy, describing how ghosts come to visit Vaark's wife after she falls into a fever, "it was the moon that stared back like a worried friend in a sky the texture of a lady's ball gown."
Before his wife took ill, Vaark decided to build himself a large mansion, an ominous act of hubris described through Lina's eyes: "That third and presumably final house that Sir insisted on building distorted sunlight and required the death of fifty trees." Vaark, who prided himself on living within the confines of nature, on not becoming a slave driver, couldn't help but overstep.
What happens next -- disease spreading like wildfire, some of the farm being spared, some of it not -- feels like punishment for Vaark's presumption. But it's not a connection a reader easily makes (and not until finishing the book), since Morrison forces the reader to spend so much time sorting out the story, unraveling connections that needn't be so mysterious. Perfected in Beloved, used adeptly in Love and Jazz, Morrison's narrative braid here simply feels needlessly complex.
It's an odd mistake in a novel that is, at the root, meant to be about shared burdens, about how there were many different forms of slavery at that time. Vaark's wife, for instance, travels to America to a husband she does not know, aboard a vessel not much nicer than the ships in which slaves were transported . Her father has essentially sold her to a stranger. Upon arrival, she shares something with many women at the time, even those of a different faith.
"The promise and threat of men. Here, they agreed, was where security and risk lay.... Some, like Lina, who had experienced both deliverance and destruction at their hands, withdrew. Some, like Sorrow, who apparently was never coached by other females, became their play. Some like her shipmates fought them. Others, the pious, obeyed them. And a few, like herself, after a mutually loving relationship, became like children when the man was gone."
In this sense, if A Mercy begins with a mother's agonizing sacrifice, it becomes a story because a man provides the act that gives the book its title. These were the gender dynamics of the time. As the story expands, slaves who are white, Native American, black, and emotionally bound pass this gesture back and forth. At a moment when America may be about to elect its first black president, Morrison has given us a fable about an America in which the divisions that almost became calcified were trumped by the basic human need for survival. It is a brief, bone-hard, magically affecting tale -- tangled, but powerful enough that it never has to ask the question: what if it had always been so? --John Freeman
John Freeman's work has appeared in The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal and on NPR. He is completing a book on the tyranny of email for Scribner.
Growing up in Lorain, Ohio, a milieu Jet magazine described as "mixed and sometimes hostile," Morrison experienced racism firsthand. (When she was still a toddler, her home was set on fire with her family inside.) Yet, her father instilled in her a great sense of dignity, a cultural pride that would permeate her writing. She distinguished herself in school, graduating from Howard and Cornell Universities with bachelor's and master's degrees in English; in addition to her career as a writer, she has taught at several colleges and universities, lectured widely, and worked in publishing.
Morrison made her literary debut in 1970 with The Bluest Eye, the story of a lonely 11-year-old black girl who prays that God will turn her eyes blue, in the naïve belief that this transformation will change her miserable life. As the tale unfolds, her life does change, but in ways almost too tragic and devastating to contemplate. On its publication, the book received mixed reviews; but John Leonard of The New York Times recognized the brilliance of Morrison's writing, describing her prose as "...so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry."
Over time, Morrison's talent became self-evident, and her reputation grew with each successive book. Her second novel, Sula, was nominated for a National Book Award; her third, 1977's Song of Solomon, established her as a true literary force. Shot through with the mythology and African-American folklore that informed Morrison's childhood in Ohio, this contemporary folktale is notable for its blending of supernatural and realistic elements. It was reviewed rapturously and went on win a National Book Critics Circle Award.
The culmination of Morrison's storytelling skills, and the book most often considered her masterpiece, is Beloved. Published in 1987 and inspired by an incident from history, this post-Civil War ghost story tells the story of Sethe, a former runaway slave who murdered her baby daughter rather than condemn her to a life of slavery. Now, 18 years later, Sethe and her family are haunted by the spirit of the dead child. Heartbreaking and harrowing, Beloved grapples with mythic themes of love and loss, family and freedom, grief and guilt, while excavating the tragic, shameful legacy of slavery. The novel so moved Morrison's literary peers that 48 of them signed an open letter published in The New York Times, demanding that she be recognized for this towering achievement. The book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize; and in 2006, it was selected by The New York Times as the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.
In addition to her extraordinary novels, Morrison has also written a play, short stories, a children's book, and copious nonfiction, including essays, reviews, and literary and social criticism. While she has made her name by addressing important African-American themes, her narrative power and epic sweep have won her a wide and diverse audience. She cannot be dismissed as a "black writer" any more than we can shoehorn Faulkner's fiction into "southern literature." Fittingly, she received the Nobel Prize in 1993; perhaps the true power of her impressive body of work is best summed up in the Swedish Academy's citation, which reads: "To Toni Morrison, who, in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality."
In 1986, the first production of Morrison's sole play Dreaming Emmett was staged. The play was based on the story of Emmett Till, a black teen murdered by racists in 1955.
Morrison's prestigious status is not limited to her revered novels or her multitude of awards. She also holds a chair at Princeton University.
1. Florens addresses her story to the blacksmith she loves and writes: "You can think what I tell you a confession, if you like, but one full of curiosities familiar only in dreams and during those moments when a dog's profile plays in the steam of a kettle" (page 3). In what sense is her story a confession? What are the dreamlike "curiosities" it is filled with?
2. Florens writes to the blacksmith, "I am happy the world is breaking open for us, yet its newness trembles me" (page 5), and later, "Now I am knowing that unlike with Senhor, priests are unlove here" (page 7). In what ways is Florens's use of language strikingly eccentric and poetic? What does the way she speaks and writes reveal about who she is and what her experience has been?
3. What does A Mercy reveal about Colonial America that is startling and new? In what ways does Morrison give this period in our history an emotional depth that cannot be found in text books?
4. A Mercy is told primarily through the distinctive narrative voices of Florens, Lina, Jacob, Rebekka, Sorrow, and, lastly, Florens's mother. What do these characters reveal about themselves through the way they speak? What are the advantages of such a multivocal narrative over one told through a single voice?
5. Jacob Vaark is reluctant to traffic in human flesh and determined to amass wealth honestly, without "trading his conscience for coin" (page 28). How does he justify making money from trading sugar produced by slave labor in Barbados? What larger point is Morrison making here?
6. How does Jacob's attitude toward his slaves/workers differ from that of the farmer who owns Florens's mother?
7. When Rebekka falls ill, Lina treats her with a mixture of herbs: devil's bit, mugwort, Saint-John's-wort, maidenhair, and periwinkle. She also considers "repeating some of the prayers she learned among the Presbyterians, but since none had saved Sir, she thought not" (page 50). What fundamental differences are suggested here between the practical, earth-based healing knowledge of Lina and the more ethereal prayers of the Presbyterians? What larger role does healing play in the novel?
8. Rebekka knows that even as a white woman, her prospects are limited to "servant, prostitute, wife, and although horrible stories were told about each of those careers, the last one seemed safest" (pages 77–78). And Lina, Sorrow, and Florens know that if their mistress dies, "three unmastered women … out here, alone, belonging to no one, became wild game for anyone" (page 58). What does the novel as a whole reveal about the precarious position of women, European and African, free and enslaved, in late-17th-century America?
9. Rebekka says she does not fear the violence in the colonies—the occasional skirmishes and uprisings—because it is so much less horrifying and pervasive than the violence in her home country of England. In what ways is "civilized" England more savage than "savage" America?
10. What role does the love story between Florens and the blacksmith play in the novel? Why does the blacksmith tell Florens that she is "a slave by choice" (page 141)?
11. When Florens asks for shelter on her journey to find the blacksmith, she is taken in by a Christian widow and her apparently "possessed" daughter Jane, whose soul she is trying to save by whipping her. And Rebekka experiences religion, as practiced by her mother, as "a flame fueled by a wondrous hatred" (page 74). How are Christians depicted in the novel? How do they regard Florens, and black people generally?
12. Lina tells Florens, "We never shape the world... The world shapes us" (page 71). What does she mean? In what ways are the main characters in the novel more shaped by than shapers of the world they inhabit?
13. Why does Florens's mother urge Jacob to take her? Why does she consider his doing so a mercy? What does her decision say about the conditions in which she and so many others like her were forced to live?
14. The sachem of Lina's tribe says of the Europeans: "Cut loose from the earth's soul, they insisted on purchase of its soil, and like all orphans they were insatiable. It was their destiny to chew up the world and spit out a horribleness that would destroy all primary peoples" (page 54). To what extent is this an accurate assessment? In what ways is A Mercy about the condition of being orphaned? What is the literal and symbolic significance of being orphaned or abandoned in the novel?
15. Why does Morrison choose to end the novel in the voice of Florens' s mother? How does the ending alter or intensify all that has come before it?
16. Why is it important to have a visceral, emotional grasp of what life was like, especially for Africans, Native Americans, and women, in Colonial America? In what ways has American culture tried to forget or whitewash this history?
17. Did you see the stunning twist at the novel's conclusion coming? If so, when and why? If not, why do you think it blindsided you?
18. How do the stories of the women in A Mercy serve as a prequel to the stories of the women in Beloved, which is set two centuries later?
Yesh_Prabhu_Writer
Posted November 16, 2008
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In this short, lyrical and gripping novel, Tony Morrison has undertaken, once again, to explore her favorite subject: the evils of slavery. Written in prose so lovely and mesmerizing that it reminded me of her ¿Sula¿, also a short novel published thirty-five years ago, ¿A Mercy¿ was a great joy to read.
Jacob Vaark, a Dutch-born farmer and trader, and Rebecca, his English wife own a tobacco plantation. Even though Jacob owned a few slaves, he did so only as a necessity to run his homestead. Jacob is sympathetic towards orphans and waifs because he himself was parentless at a young age, and had to fend for himself on the streets running small errands.
At the heart of the novel is an act of mercy. When Jacob Vaark travels to Maryland to collect debt from a tobacco plantaion owner named Senor D¿Ortega, he finds out that Senor is broke and has no money to pay off the debt. Senor offers Jacob a thin black girl named Florens, a daughter of one of his slaves, as a partial payment of the debt. Florens is smart, and she can read and write also. Florens¿ mother senses that Jacob is more kind-hearted than her master, and so pleads with Senor to give Florens to Jacob. Her hope is that Florens would have a better life in Jacob¿s estate. Florens¿s mother considers this an act of mercy, but the irony is that Florence considers it abandonment.
Several sympathetic characters make the novel interesting and hold a reader¿s attention. Lina (Messalina), a native American, was sold to Jacob by the Presbytarians who had rescued and saved her. Sorrow, a sea captain¿s daughter, survives a ship wreck, but ends up in Jacob¿s plantation as a slave. Willard and Scully are indentured servants who are sent to work at Jacob¿s plantation by their contract holders. A young black man, a blacksmith, arrives to make an iron gate for Jacob¿s new house. He is not a slave, but a free man. This man is also knowledgeable about medicinal herbs, and Florens falls in love with him.
In this novel, Toni Morrison¿s prose shines: ¿A frightened, long-necked child who did not speak for weeks but when she did, her light, singsong voice was lovely to hear. Some how, some way, the child assuaged the tiny yet eternal yearning for the home Lina once knew, where everyone had anything, and no one had everything.¿
Reading this novel was an intense, deeply moving, and satisfying experience. Even though the novel is short, it is bright, deep and weighty.
28 out of 29 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.To read Toni Morrison is a privilege. To hear her narrate her work is both privilege and pleasure. Her voice will surprise some as it is slight with the smallest bit of huskiness. Such strong, wonderful words from a voice so quiet? At times the sound belies her 77 years; at other times, it reveals all of that time as she tells us a story of 17th century America, the years before slavery became what we know of it as today.
Set primarily in the home of farmer Jacob Vaark this is a mini masterpiece, the print copy running a brief 169 pages. His household is unique, a blend of the outcast and the wounded. There is his wife, Rebekka, who fled England to escape religious intolerance. Here her closest friend is Lina, a Native American servant who saw her village destroyed by disease. Sorrow is the oddest of the cast, a strange girl who was found much like a piece of drift wood washed up by the sea.
Florens, the central character, is a young slave girl whom Vaark took in payment for a debt. After hearing her mother plead with Vaark to accept her she finds herself lost, searching for love.
A strange household? Yes. But each in quest of heart's fulfillment, as are we all.
Every listener will undoubtedly find something different in A Mercy - all will be sorry it is over so soon.
- Gail Cooke
8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Newly released, A Mercy takes place in the 1680's - the early days of the slave trade in the Americas.
Jacob is a trader who takes a small slave girl- Florens - in partial payment for a debt. The mother of the child begs him to take the girl, not herself. It is this act that has consequences for all the lives that are intertwined with that of Florens'. Florens joins Jacob's wife Rebekka, Lina, a servant and Sorrow, an indentured young woman, at their hardscrabble farm. Scully and Willard are also hoping to buy their freedom. Florens yearns for the blacksmith, an African who has never been enslaved.
Life at this time in history is defined and described from the viewpoint of each of these characters. Each character is enslaved to something in this new world - an owner, religion, wealth, desire and memory. The most poignant voice is that of Floren's mother. The last chapter of the book belongs to her and it ends on a powerful note.
Toni Morrison has a gift with words. Although it is tempting to read straight through to the end, I always take the time to savour and enjoy the language she uses.
..."especially here where tobacco and slaves were married, each currency clutching it's partner's elbow".
Toni Morrison is an amazingly gifted writer, having won both a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize. If you haven't experienced her yet, I encourage you to pick up any of her books.
8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.tonyathamestaylor
Posted February 16, 2009
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Toni Morrison explores race through deconstructing (unpacking) the social construction of whiteness. Finally, a book that explores whiteness and put it on trial. This book does not treat whiteness (i.e. Western) traits as "human" traits! It treats white as a color and whiteness as a human construct, not a divine one. The book has several voices-- layered voices that tell a story of identity from individual perspectives. The white characters in the book reveal the solidifying of whiteness through religion, class, community, and gender. Taking place in the wilderness of North America, this book explores how whites came to accept oppression found in a racial caste system. The black characters show how blacks lived in three worlds--one they authored, one they observed, and the one they owned. In self-constructed worlds, they experienced humanity--love and its sacrifices. The Indian character learns to reconcile her memories to find a place in a world that reduced her to a savage. Her self-constructed identity buffered her from the dehumanizing white-authored evironment in which she lived. Lastly, a split human soul found solace in giving life and focusing on that life reminds us all love shared is the best gift to give to another human. "A Mercy" tells the story about how different folks function in the same space, yet have different understandings of that space. While Morrison does a good job at exploring the genesis of racialized identities, at times, a comma here and there would have made this book more enjoyable to read.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 25, 2012
This is the first Toni Morrison I have read. Her unique approach to character development puts the reader immediately inside the thoughts of each individual. We learn about the world of slavery and prejudice through the eyes of women who lived it. The reader experiences the unique understanding and focus of each character as their lives are woven into a dramatic web of interdependence. The final page reveals a perspective so riveting that the story has stayed with me weeks after I finished reading it.
This book offers a powerful glimpse into the lives that were shaped by the degridation of prejudice against women and slaves. I am haunted by a new understanding of what it must have felt like to live in that world. I am chagrined to discover blind spots in my own existence that have kept me from seeing the continued segregation in our own society. Thank you, Toni Morrison, for being a conscience for all of us.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 16, 2009
Sorry but I'm giving this audio book away. Toni Morrison is monotonous and pretentious in her reading of this story. I honestly don't know what she was talking about - it's like I was in her bad dream.
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 9, 2009
will remain in your mind for a long time for on it is revealed
the reason for the composition. This is a marvelous book. I have ordered more of Toni Morrison's works as a result of reading A Mercy.
She is an incredible writer.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.NancyO
Posted January 4, 2009
As a companion to "Beloved," this is interesting; as a stand-alone work, it is mesmerizing. In fact, it's a wonderful first book for readers who haven't read Morrion's work. I suggest that once the reader has read through chapter 2, he/she return to chapter 1 and read it again. The plot falls into place neatly and becomes much more accessible to readers who might be confused by Florens' language.
A brief work, this is a relatively quick read, but worthy of contemplation.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 31, 2012
Excellant. That is all that needs to be said. Enjoy.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I could not put this book down. I found myself turning on the bedside lamp in the middle of the night just to find out what would happen next. Toni Morrison is a master at her craft and does not skimp on keeping her readers tantalized, ready to turn each page. The characters are well crafted, complicated, connected and sumptuous as only Toni Morrison could create them. You are neither angered or annoyed by each character, just curious as to how they became the people they are in a time so far out of reach. A gem of a novel. Definately a must read.
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Posted May 3, 2010
Reviewed by Naomi Noon, author of "Once Upon Yesterday". A Mercy is a tale of the hardship and struggle of men and women, mostly women, Caucasian or black, in this beautiful, wide and wild land that was America of the seventeenth century. This book has depth.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.MrsJones23
Posted April 21, 2010
I know Toni Morrison is a great and timeless writer but I was just not impressed with this book. True the plot was original but the story itself was just so hopeless! This story does stimulate great conversation but it can also be a confusing read. I was left with a lot of questions at the end. I had to read this for a class and i was happy when I had to finish the last page. I would say it was a waste of my time.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 20, 2010
Slavery is always a dark and brutal subject, but even in the worst moments Morrison has the talent to include a gorgeously written gem of a sentence.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.NancyO
Posted February 20, 2010
Toni Morrison is one of my favorite authors, and I found this book to be more accessible to the first-time Morrison reader than her others. Reading Toni Morrison is like reading poetry; her wordsmithing is unmatched.
We in our book club particularly enjoyed looking at the historical setting and discussing the author's message to the reader, especially the 21st century white middle-class reader, as part of our Black History Month studies. I feel that by placing her story in the time period she chose, Ms. Morrison has explored the horrors of slavery, both physical and emotional, in a truly fresh, original manner.
This reading and discussion experience was satisfying and enjoyable to our entire group.
anlinton
Posted December 25, 2009
This book was not what I was expecting...the usual tricky, explosive plot that accompanies Morrison's writing is missing from this work. This book is, for the most part, predictable and does not really tell a complete story. It just "is," and perhaps that is what a lot of readers go into a book expecting, but I do not expect that when I pick up something by Toni Morrison. In that respect, it was disappointing.
Also, you felt when Morrison was developing her characters. Again, very predictable and very un-Morrison. It made you understand the characters better, but it was not done in any sort of crafty way. It was just done. Finally, after the back-story of each character was told, it was unclear exactly what each character was doing in the novel. There was no sense of closure after fininshing the novel even though the writing and set up seemed to be going towards that goal. Finally, the main male character was not that developed and even when his development began, it was unclear why he was even there in the first place (beyond the fact that all the other characters felt "saved" by him).
This novel was not the deep, introspective story that I was expecting. It had bits and pieces, but no real "tie that binds."
A Mercy is a challenging read. Toni Morrison employs an array of voices, some Faulkneresque in their vague almost inarticulate tones. She creates a gritty, brutal, natural world. The first segment is a tough slog, but it's worth persevering. By the time you're 30 pages into this story, you will be hooked, and the ending is a literary crecendo. It's a tough read, but it's short and well worth the effort.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Evangeline_V
Posted August 11, 2009
Who's on first? "Beloved" was by far worth the work, "Paradise" was difficult, even on a second read (still don't know which character is "the white girl" who was shot first in the first sentence), and maybe I'm just getting too old for this fine but increasingly elusive author.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.The first chapter had to be re-read 3 times before I was able to move on. Toni Morrison is known for her writing and I think this is one of her most difficult.
I enjoy her books, but I have to fully re-read this one to give a thorough critique. What I can honestly say is that I lost the story line of the different characters throughout the book that I had to go back to re-read a whole chapter so I can see who she was referring to.
Overall, at this point, I did enjoy the book. I am looking forward to reading it again. This time with a better grip on her style in this book.
Anonymous
Posted June 6, 2009
I had a very difficult time getting in to the book and adjusting to the dialect of the writing.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.brighteye
Posted April 10, 2009
this book is another example of her special gifts ; poet,storyteller and narrator .( her reading the audio version is breathtaking ). before this novel "sula" was my favorite, now i'm not so sure. i love this book and like her other work , i'll be read it again.
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Overview
A powerful tragedy distilled into a small masterpiece by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier.Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader in 1680s United States, when the slave trade is still in its infancy. Reluctantly he takes a small slave girl in part payment from a plantation owner for a bad debt. Feeling rejected by her slave mother, 14-year-old Florens can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, but later from the ...