Tammye Huf

I usually don’t reach for historical fiction, let alone one of the American slave narrative variety. I’m African American, and my proximity to slavery in America calls for an obvious sensitivity level to the content and subject matter discussed in books written from a slave’s perspective.

A More Perfect Union is a 2020 historical fiction novel inspired by the union of the author’s great-great-grandparents, an Irish immigrant and an African American slave. It was surprising and had its challenges, but overall proved to be an inspiring love story, supporting the notion that Love knows no bounds.

Huf constructs a story centered around Sarah, a slave recently bought by a self-proclaimed Christian family. After being purchased at the auction block, Sarah interacts with other characters that we follow the perspectives of, and in mentioning this, it’s through them, we experience her. The multiple perspectives acted as the vehicle for the plot and it’s through them that we witness the trajectory of Sarah’s life veering from one scenario to the next. For me, this is why I felt detached from her but interested in the story.

Characters can usually be a hit or miss in most stories. In this one, I was initially annoyed with everyone. Any of their actions or responses would agitate me. I’m pretty sure it’s because I kept putting myself in each character’s position and expecting them to operate as if they are of the same mind as myself. Once I got past that, I was able to appreciate each character’s motives.

The story opens up by introducing us to Henry, an Irish immigrant, who has newly arrived in America. He has fled his homeland due to The Great Famine and views America as a step up from being in Ireland. To survive in America, he makes great efforts to disguise his accent, and change his last name, as there is discrimination in the US against immigrants, regardless of their skin color. Eventually, he finds work, but his employment is shortlived due to an altercation.

While looking for another job, he crosses paths with Sarah, a house slave, bought and newly appointed to the Jubilee Plantation. She’s known for being an herbalist of sorts and is well-liked by her Master and his wife and most of the Jubilee Plantation slaves that haven’t been consumed by Maple. Add Henry to the list of people that Sarah gets on well with and you can quickly see how this becomes a problem. Henry is a white man and he’s got eyes for more than blacksmithing work at the Jubilee Plantation.

Maple and others on the plantation are watching this relationship develop and expectantly react with a mixture of inquisitiveness, anger, and caution. Some see their budding relationship as an opportunity.

It’s through the lens of these three characters, Sarah, Henry, and Maple that we experience the complications that are inherent to pursuing a forbidden relationship in 1840s America. We also see how vindictiveness can be all-consuming and begets short-sightedness, for the instant gratification of doing someone ‘dirty’ is more of a focal point than most would warrant it to be.

Although frustrating at times, I enjoyed A More Perfect Union. My only wish is that the characters be more fleshed out. Their characterizations felt a little surface. Other than that, it was a new-to-me spin on the slave narrative that I’d like to read more from. The varying perspectives was refreshing and I appreciate the author for highlighting how religion was a tool in support of slavery. This book earned many nods from me.… (mehr)

I loved this book - all of the characters were dynamic and complex, trying to find their own way to a ever so slightly better life. I even liked Maple, who served as the sometime villain of the tale, as I could understand how pain motivated so many of her actions. And, of course, I enjoyed the love story between Henry and Sarah and was especially intrigued with the author's acknowledge that this aspect was based on her own several-times-great grandparents. A fascinating read and highly recommended.… (mehr)

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

People say it's the disease and the hunger that's killing us, but I say it's the being poor.

Told in first person point-of-view chapters alternating, mostly, between Henry a young adult in Ireland slowly starving to death with his family because of the potato famine and greed of the English landowners and Sarah a young enslaved woman in Virginia who gets sold away from her family to masters who like to wield the word of God to their own means, A More Perfect Union was a story of survival and living in spite of.

“[...] Everything you do gets paid for one way or the other. If you ain't the one paying, you can sure bet someone else is.”

Henry's journey from leaving Ireland and the absolute no way to survive there after his parents die and his arrival in New York after being the only sibling to survive the ship ride over showed how he adapted the attitude of survival at all costs. He does things in New York he wouldn't have thought himself capable of to survive, in spite of the “Irish Need Not Apply” and eventually ends up a traveling blacksmith. He meets Sarah on the road one day and instantly feels something for her. Sarah now lives on Jubilee Plantation and is enslaved in the house to look after the master's son. Coming from Ireland, Henry has some ignorance about the American slavery system and he doesn't always respect the danger Sarah is in. Sarah understands it and when she sees that Henry has come to her plantation and the master hires him on to stay awhile, she knows she should stay away but also has feelings for Henry.

This is what it looks like when a master holds you special.

There is a third pov from a character called Maple and even though Sarah and Henry are clearly the focus of the story (the author's great-great-grandparents are the inspiration for Sarah and Henry), I often found Maple's povs the most powerful. Maple is the half-sister of the master's wife and after years of her ancestors being raped by their self-imposed masters, she could pass for white. She grew-up with and raised her half-sister and when the half-sister got married, their father gave Maple to her and Maple was forced to leave behind her mother, husband, and daughter Rose. Maple comes off hateful and mean to Sarah but readers get Maple's inner thoughts through her pov and her boiling rage and PTSD from her enslavement experiences had me understanding her more.

But I know I can't claim innocence no matter how small a cog of the wheel I am.

The bulk of the story is Henry and Sarah falling in love, Henry learning that any oppression he experienced as Irish is not the same as what Sarah lives, and them trying to figure out a way to be together. There's plantation politics between the other enslaved individuals at Jubilee, how they protect and fight for each other in the ways that they can, danger from the overseer, and a good look at how the master and missus think they are better than other owners because they follow the word of God. I liked how the author showed the hypocrisy of the master by claiming to be a man of god and then using it as a tool to try and placate Northern abolitionists and use it as a weapon against the people of Jubilee.

A country can claim that wrong is right, but that'll never erase the sin of it.

Given the time and place of this story, there are hard truths and experiences discussed and shown, definite content warnings for the control the master and overseer have over other human beings, the rapes (shown, remembered, and thought of), and whippings. I think Sarah not letting Henry absolve/explain away his making the chains that at times bound her, Maple's fraught determination to try and save her daughter, and Bessie, an older enslaved woman's fate, will be scenes that will stay with readers long after they finish the book.

“I promise that I'll be yours if you'll be mine.”

The ending was rushed through a little quickly, we get a brief, quick look at the, in spite of the obstacles, life Sarah and Henry forged for themselves to give some uplifting. This was a memorable story for its hard truths, Maple's rage, and promise.… (mehr)