The Known World | Edward P. Jones

The Known World | Edward P. Jones | One of my favorite books

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The Known World

	The Known World Edward P. Jones HarperPerennial, 2004 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 296 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

great book

At the beginning a bit tough to follow, but get through it as it is worthwhile!

One of my favorite books

The Known World is full of heartbreak & is not always easy to read... and yet I couldn't stop. Mr Jones' writing is so beautiful & moving. This book reminds me to be thankful for the easiness in my own life.

A strikingly unusual story told with Biblical grandeur

Henry Townsend is a black man living in the American South (in Virginia) 20 years before the Civil War. He is the free son of parents who are freed slaves.

His father, a skilled woodworker, holds especially strong convictions about the evils of slavery. Imagine what this poor man feels when his son Henry grows up to idolize a white man who is the most powerful slave-owner in the county. Even worse, Henry gets his own plantation and buys his own black slaves!

When Henry dies suddenly, his widow Caldonia struggles to hang on to his legacy. Soon Henry's empire starts to unravel as Henry's slaves start asserting their own complex personalities.

The author follows the destiny of several characters, detailing their adventures in rich, sweeping prose. The story of one character in particular - Counsel, a white man who sets fire to his lands in the wake of smallpox and roams west into Texas - rivals the fiction of Cormac McCarthy in terms of epic surrealism. A not-to-be-missed book, especially for aficionados of antebellum and Civil War stories.

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Nice Try...

Sadly, this book does not live up to its billing; it's certainly not a Pulitzer winner on merit. "Hard to follow" is kind; the plot and the telling is a mishmash that bobs and weaves, takes five steps forward and six back, enters cul-de-sacs and makes hairpin turns. You get the idea. Frankly, Jones could have written a good book, but he needed a good editor.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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