This is an American Revolution-era historical novel with an emphasis on the slave trade. The son of an African princess, Octavian, is from birth subject to experimental analysis by some radical Boston philosophers eager to find out what happens if such a child is given a classical education (Latin, Greek, the violin) – are Africans ‘a separate and distinct species’? The author claims that the kind of experiments they conducted indeed took place.
Awareness of this reality as a teenager leads Octavian to tell of all that happens to him by the time he writes in his early twenties, adding to letters from a soldier friend who tells his story also. Circumstances dictate that at thirteen he reverts to true slavery, at a time of great political unrest in the colonies. There is heavy irony in slave-owners sending slaves to fight for freedom, but not their own.
The book is written in arcane 18th Century language and deals with the issues of slavery, human rights, racism, free will, the causes of war and one person’s struggle to find his true self. This historical novel is aimed at young adults in a thoroughly modern avant-garde style – part satire (‘I do not believe they ever meant unkindness’), part gothic fantasy, part factual and part shock-realism. Characters are painted well and a lot of care seems to have gone into the plot and its development. It is well written, but it is certainly not light reading for readers. There are a number of unsavoury situations and descriptions in the book, though none graphic. On the whole I would say it misses its target audience who might lose interest - it is rather a plodding read at times. The narrative tricks he uses actually detract from the storyline for me, and I found it difficult to empathise with Octavian. I think the book does not live up to the hype, which is probably the result of an established author trying something more weighty and dealing with an interesting take on a specific historical period – scholars are happy to support a revolution to rid themselves of an unjust repression under the British, while maintaining their rights over ‘human property’ through slavery.
C.C. (United Kingdom, 2016)