We would not be the world's superpower today if we had not had 250 years of free, limitless labor on which to build our economy...From "The House Girl" by Tara ConklinI just finished reading this first novel by another attorney turned writer. This book interweaves the stories of two women, one a young house slave in Virginia in the 1800s, the other a young lawyer living in New York in 2004.
I always take special note of the opening line in novels. "The House Girl" starts this way: Mister hit Josephine with the palm of his hand across her left cheek and it was then she knew she would run.
The house girl, Josephine Bell, endures all of the torture, rape, destruction of family and general suffering we've always known about but need to be reminded of from time to time. By the way, her last name is that of her owners. Slaves didn't have last names of their own.
Josephine's story deals with the bizarre relationships slaves, especially house slaves, had with their owners. She had a love/hate relationship with her mistress who mistreated her in ways she didn't even know about.
The other story has to do with the attorney, Lina Sparrow. Their lives become intertwined when Lina is directed to take part in a reparation case.
One of the main themes running through the book is "art." You may remember that my definition of an artistic gift, be it drawing, writing, music or whatever, is that - you have to do it. Josephine had this gift.
I found "The House Girl" to be slow going. It's another one of those books that I probably wouldn't have read if it wasn't required reading by my book club. But, once again, I'm a better person for having read it.
When Josephine's linage is recorded and we learn that, at some point, half of the family self identified themselves as Negro and half self identified themselves as Caucasian - I was reminded once more that we're all related. First as children of God, and, most likely, way more of us than we think are related by blood as well.
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