#578 An Outtake from the Ideological Origins of the American Revolution- John Keene
This is a period fiction short story. We are in Massachusetts pre-independence. A slave owner hides the birth of a child born of one of his slaves. The child’s father is unknown but light of skin, he has been named Zion. Zion’s mother died giving birth, so is kept in the care of another woman, an insolent woman that was eventually sold to another family. This rebelliousness may have been passed on to the child:
“So it is said that one’s sense of law, like one’s concept of morality, originates in the home.”
When Zion is a teenager, he first begins his life filled with escapes, crime, punishment and defiance. Instilled with a sense of freedom and self-worth, Zion’s repeated captures and beatings only fuel his resolve.
“The local authorities again captured, tried and imprisoned him, not only for his crimes but for his defiance of the social order, yet his realization of his own personal power had galvanized him, making life insufferable under any circumstances but his own liberation.”
As the social and political landscape rapidly changes in the northeast in the 1770’s the clasp on the punishment of those once enslaved loosens, but Zion’s crimes mount and he is sentenced to die. Defiant till the end, he pleas to other’s such as him to fight for freedom not to fall to crime or drink. His cell is found empty before he is hung…but somebody must hang, justice may be blind, but so is society.
I am enjoying Keene’s style in this book. After the last story, I mentioned he reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marques. This strengthens that comparison for me. Add also historic fiction works like Edward Jones’ Known World or New York by Edward Rutherford to that list of comparisons.
Notable Passage: “Under duress, one’s actions assume a dream-like clarity.”
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