January 29, 2018
Harris (Gillespie and I) draws on an obscure historical event to craft an affecting account of a young boy’s coming-of-age. The story is narrated by Lucien, a slave “thirteen or fourteen years old” working on Martinique, who has already been taught by life to always expect the worst. In 1765, he and his brother, Emile, who’s more than twice his age, are summoned by Father Cléophas, a mendicant friar, to carry out a perilous mission on Grenada, where Lucien was born. After making a routine delivery, the siblings are to retrieve about 40 slaves who once belonged to the Martinique friars but now work at a hospital there and on the plantation whose proceeds support the hospital’s work. Cléophas claims that the assignment has the approval of Grenada’s English governor, but cautions that the Englishmen running the hospital dispute the friars’ claims of ownership. Lucien and Emile undertake the venture, which, unsurprisingly, does not go smoothly. Harris makes the most of her choice to portray the cruelties of slavery through the eyes of a young lead, a decision that pays off handsomely by the moving conclusion. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.
March 15, 2018
Set in 1765 on the Caribbean islands of Martinque and Grenada and based on a true story, Harris' (Gillespie and I, 2012) latest relates the harrowing tale of two slave brothers, Lucien and Emile, who are tasked by one of their masters, Father Cleophas, to undertake a perilous mission. Ordered to travel to Grenada to retrieve 40 slaves held in bondage by the British but purportedly owned by the Martinique friars, they face a journey fraught with hardship and peril. Profit and greed are the root causes of evil, as the friars desperately need the slaves to harvest their sugar cane and the British are equally determined to retain their cheap source of labor. As the story unfolds and the bond between the brothers grows stronger, it becomes heartbreakingly clear that their undertaking can only end in tragedy. This haunting, often graphically brutal portrait of slavery and inhumanity is also a tribute to the triumph of loyalty and love under the cruelest of circumstances.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)