I'm nearing the end of Gone with the Wind, and I'm feeling the propaganda seep into my brain a little bit. I'm well educated on the realities of antebellum South and it isn't necessarily difficult for me to see what's been airbrushed over, but spending so many hours reading from the Confederate point of view has softened my perspective in a way that is maybe a little problematic.
So, I was hoping y'all could suggest me a book that counter-balances GWTW a bit! Preferably something from the perspective of an enslaved person, or maybe from the union.
I don't think I'll have the capacity to pick up another 1,000 page epic for a while, so I definitely don't need it to be similar in format. Bonus points if it's a similar region/era but not necessary, I think being able to follow the emotion of it would be enough honestly.
by Simple_Concentrate75
11 Comments
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I think either *The Underground Railroad* by Colson Whitehead or *Kindred* by Octavia E. Butler would be perfect for this.
*The Wind Done Gone* by Alice Randall retells the story from the perspective of Mammy’s daughter.
If you enjoy paranormal horror, you could try *When the Reckoning Comes* by Tanya McQueen, about a woman who goes to a plantation for her friends’ wedding. Seconding *The Underground Railroad* by Whitehead.
If you can do nonfiction –
* *Lose Your Mother* by Sadiya Hartman. She’s an African American woman who traveled to Ghana to trace the beginnings of the Atlantic Slave Route. We read it for an African American history class in college. It’s like half memoir, half history.
* *They Were Her Property* by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, about how white slaveholding women could be just as brutal as their male counterparts.
* *Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl* by Harriet Jacobs. This is the first hand account of a woman’s childhood as an enslaved person, and her escape, which took years.
Jubilee by Margaret Walker might be worth checking out – set in GA and AL and includes Civil War and Reconstruction era. Narrator starts off enslaved and book follows her through emancipation.
I just finished Blood over Bright Haven last night. It was only like a 3 star read for me because it was kind of ham-fisted in its treatment of themes like colonialism and racism and sexism — it felt like a YA level treatment or a 101 checklist, very “tell” rather than “show”. But, if you’re looking for a palate cleanser after the confederacy, it’s kind of on an equally opposite end of the spectrum as GWTW.
Beloved – Toni Morrison – Devastating. Loosely based on a true story of escaped slave, Margaret Garner.
The Killer Angels narrates the Battle of Gettysburg from the perspective of several different participants. Well researched. Won a Pulitzer.
Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
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The Water Dancer