Wench Makes Slavery a Reality for Readers of all Ages

Last year, I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a Katie Couric interview with Kathryn Stockett, author of the Help, a beautifully written novel about race relations in Mississippi in the 60s. The Help has resonated with so many that it has been on the NY Times Bestseller list for 96 weeks. I just finished reading Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, a powerful novel about slavery that is destined to sweep the nation in the same way.

Wench is set earlier in time than the Help, over three hot and humid consecutive summers on the cusp of the Civil War. The setting of the novel is Tawawa House, a resort in Ohio where plantation owners liked to vacation with their mistresses, the favored house slaves with whom they were sleeping and fathering children. Tawawa House existed but the characters in the novel are fictional.

In Wench, slavery is portrayed at its most cruel, most personal, and most insidious level because it shows long-standing sexual relationships between master and slave. Two of the four main characters in the Wench hate their abusive masters who essentially rape them nightly, and offer them up to other men who express interest, but the other two have a more loving relationship based on years of intimacy. It is those relationships that are the most disturbing because even though the men show signs of affection for their mistresses, they never stop thinking of the women as their property.

As Ohio is part of the North, these Southern slaves are surrounded by free black servants, and they wrestle with the temptation to escape, even though it would mean abandoning their children back on the plantation. Nothing belongs to the slave women: not their children, not their hearts, and not even their children. But even though they have been denied everything, these women still form a community and support each other as they make the most important decisions of their lives.

I can't recommend Wench enough. Perkins-Valdez brings slavery to life and pushes the reader to really consider what it must have been like to live at the whim of someone else. Lizzie, Reenie, Sweet, and Mawu are beautifully drawn characters with unique voices and points of view. Their choices will haunt you long after you finish the book.

Wench just came out in paperback last week, always a pre-requisite for my book club picks. I received my copy thanks to TLC Book Tours as this review is part of their campaign.