The Know World by Edward P. Jones was listed as one of the most important American novels in the last 25 tears years according to an article in the New York Times. I was abashed since I hadn’t even heard of it-it slipped under my radar, despite being an Oprah Book of the Month (not that I’m a huge Oprah fan, but it has cultural significance). I saw my mother had a copy and asked to borrow it. It is an impressive sprawling novel about life on the Mason-Dixon line in Virginia just before the turn of the century. It has historical roots, but it is a supreme work of imagination on the scale of Faulkner with his own made up county full of characters brimming with life. That is the author most quickly comes to mind, however Jones isn’t as inscrutable in his description of his characters. This is mainly the story of Henry Townsend a freed slave who takes on his own slaves to run his farm after becoming a freed man. This was a rare occurrence, but not unheard of. Jones mines this irony for all it’s worth and manages to create a compelling drama fraught with realistic depictions of fictional characters that come to life on the page. It is an impressive work of fiction.
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