You must not stop because you can't go on, but you must go on because you can't stop.

Jubilee by Margaret Walker

Spoiler Alert: Plot Poem

First Vyry is born and brought into this world, child of slave and master.
Dregs of childhood hurled away, she's meant for plantation disaster.
Her own mother dies, her surrogate next, third suddenly sold down South.
Vyry's connection to the Big House complex, a teen now who cooks to fill mouths.
Master tries to be kind; wife Salina hates hard, furious Vyry's mistaken for her Lillian's twin.
Randall Ware, a free black, plays the marriage card, but Vyry's not sure Master will release his kin.
She's right, of course, but they try anyway, bringing two children in, Minna and Jim.
Soon comes the day to run away, Randall wants only Vyry to come with him.
But she can't leave her little ones, so she brings them along. The overseer catches her in his trap.
Randall is off, unaware what went wrong, leaving Vyry alone to face Grimes's strap.

Family deaths follow quickly, karma perhaps? First Master, then son, then Lillian's husband.
Civil War upon them, their world in collapse, the South defeated, Salina dead, Lillian bludgeoned.
Vyry stays to care for her mistress(/sister) and wait for Randall Ware to return
But he never comes and there's this new mister, Innis Brown, unknown, but willing to learn.
Some time passes and our de facto family make home number one by the river's bed.
They're flooded out, so much for happy and free, so they try home number two, make a spread.
But their new home is too good to be true, and they're trapped in a sharecropper scam.
Now four, not three, they don't know what to do; once again they're forced out, on the lam.
Home number three seems like it will stick, a haven on a hill, a forever home.
But their presence makes the local KKK simply sick, so they burn to the ground, force them to roam.

Now a home seems like a white person's wish, so they float and don't bother to let themselves hope.
One day, Vyry hears a woman in labor and swish, with a flick of her wand, they think she's the Pope.
They don't realize she's black, till she tells at the end, and unveils their ignorant hate.
They rise up, and offer as a token to mend, a house-raising with protection to give it some weight.
Finally our quartet has a semblance of peace, till Randall re-enters the scene.
Hears Innis whipped his boy, tells him it must cease, and claims Vyry as his most rightful queen.
They fight talk and suss, and after a time, Randall must admit it's simply too late.
Jim gets his schooling, an uphill climb, and Vyry, at long last, has a happy-filled fate.

Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Dear readers, 

  I hope you all enjoyed my plot poem. As you know if you're a repeat reader, I'll likely spoil the plot below anyway, but I still like to keep up the pretense. ;) 

This was a spectacular book. I don't know about you, but I had never heard of Margaret Walker, which is probably not surprising considering she was a black woman writing in the 60s and we tend to have a way of not making books by certain communities and people known in the same way that we do for white folks and even white women. Which is also kind of the whole point of this second list of books for my blog. Suffice it to say that I'm really glad it's out there, I think it's a seminal work on the Civil War era and Reconstruction and I'm really glad I read it. In the same way that I would recommend March as a companion to Little Women, I'd recommend this book as a read-along with Gone With the Wind. I don't think one negates the other; rather, I think they illustrate disparate perspectives on a national experience, and a time that has impacts and reverberations even today. Oh, and did I mention it's based on Margaret's great-grandmother? It is. Margaret is Vyry's descendant.

All right, without further ado, my thoughts!

My commentary
Again, you may know if you've read my blob before that I write in my books. I think I started doing it to copy my friend and neighbor Anna, because I thought she was super cool (and she is), but I have really come to love it. Some people find this habit endearing, others a bit trying, but since reading is, at its heart, a personal and intimate experience, I think the only thing that matters is it works for me. :)

Here are some of my notes from this book (which should give you a sense pretty quickly of how I was feeling as I read it): 

Barf
Ick
Ugh [re: The Bible is a witness to the benefits of slavery.]
Ack!
Uh oh!
How many unmarked graves? [After several slaves die from a plague and brutal mistreatment at the hands of the overseer, I started writing this, wondering how many unmarked graves lie under our feet for every named one we see, from blacks to indigenous folks to even rural deaths that went unmarked or uncommented on, or, I suppose battle deaths as well from various wars and skirmishes. I know, kind of a dark thought, but I like cemeteries, so I guess this got me thinking about unmarked cemeteries, and how the world is kind of one big cemetery, if you think about it. Which is both cool and bizarre.]
How sick - to have to preserve food you'll never eat [Vyry becomes the cook for the Big House, and one of her jobs is to help preserve jams and jellies. I had never thought about what it would be like to preserve food that not only I wasn't planning to eat, but I was not permitted to consume. What a disturbing and traumatic thing to make someone do.]
Hell yes [Humph! I ain't cooking nothing I can't eat myself.] - when Aunt Sally, Vyry's predecessor, starts pilfering foods and cooked items from the kitchen and she and Vyry eat them in secret.
Seriously? [Re: The sermon at the hanging for the slaves who 'poisoned' their master]
F***ing monster [on Salina feeding Lucy ipecac every day to make sure she wasn't 'stealing' jams and jellies and consuming them]
Vyry is such a badass superhero [on keeping her family clothed and fed and also delivering all the town's babies at all hours after slavery is "over"]

Miscegenation on the mind
Do you know this word, blobbists? It means "the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or procreation, particularly mixing that is perceived to negatively impact the purity of a particular race or culture". Vyry is the product of miscegenation, in that she's the product of her master raping her mother, a slave, which was extremely common. This line: 

Miscegenation was no sin to Marse John. It was an accepted fact of his world.

Resonated with me because I just read Born a Crime, Trevor Noah's autobiography, which is about him and his life and the fact that he, as the product of a white Swiss man and a black South African woman, was literally, born a crime under apartheid. It echoed for me personally because my nephew is bi-racial, and the product of a white parent and a black African parent, and while neither of those stories is representative of his, or the love that both his parents share for him, race and interracial relations have a deeply complex history both in this continent and the African one (and ostensibly the rest of the world). 

What you want with them weeds?
There are so many unfair and disturbing and despicable things done in the name of preserving slavery and keeping white masters safe, I couldn't possibly list them here, nor would the list ever be comprehensive even if we tried to capture them all now looking back. That said, what's spectacular about this book is that it not only shines a light on the injustices, but also the badassness of Vyry's response to these moments. Here's my favorite one - this is a conversation between Mr. Grimes, the overseer, and Vyry. He's asking her what she's picking, since local slaves supposedly poisoned their masters by feeding them poisonous plants with their dinner. He also clearly knows nothing about plants. 

"'Them ain't no weeds, Mister Grimes. Them is greens to cook to eat, and yerbs and roots to cure all kinds of miseries what ails you.
  'Tell us what you may call 'em and what you makes from them.'
 'Well sir, this here is my greens. I got some creasy and some pusley, and some poke sallet...Now that there is mullein. Mullein is good for the feets and legs to stop swelling and heart dropsy. This here is barefoot root. I cooks it down and adds pyo lard and salt and makes a salve for the rheumatiz. Mayapple root is good to work the bowels and black halls and cherry root makes a good tea to strengthen the appetite. Tansy tea, and red shank, and hazel roots, them is all good for womanhood troubles. Penny-royal make a good tea just like peppermint do, and Samson snake root is mighty good for cramps and pains in the belly. I reckon, being you is mens, you knows about John the Conqueror. I uses Jimson weeds and red-oak bark like I do my salt and mustard poultices. Now gentlemen, that's what I does with my weeds!" Stadium of seats of applauding. Hell yes. Note that she also knows what all of these things do because slaves generally didn't have access to 'modern' medicine of the time and were largely left to their own medical care. She's like, OK, dummies, I'll tell you what I do with my little old weeds!

On grinning and joy
This, like many books that get 'real' about slavery, was hard to read, in part because I knew how hard it would be to live in that space with Vyry. But I always learn something new and reading these lines made me think about how I always smile at people, and how I generally expect them to smile back, and how I really have no idea what's driving the state of their face. 

Vyry, to Lucy, after she's been slapped for smiling: Don't never grin in that white woman's face. She don't know what you mean. I was borned here, and I been here all my life, and you don't see me grinning bout nothing, now does you? Well they ain't nothing here to grin about, that's how come I ain't grinning.

There was no joy in her life. There never had been, and she wondered if there ever would be.

On ignorance and bliss
One of the things this book does so beautifully is really articulate not only the moments of slavery and reconstruction and post-war years, but also the practical factors that we often overlook. Things like, what knowledge would you have of the outside world if you were legally required to be illiterate and you lived on a rural farm in Georgia? How would you discern truth from lies, when people who clothed and fed you (and tortured you and broke your spirit) told you one thing, and other people (strangers) told you they were fighting to make your life better and 'free' you? This book articulates that deep-rooted Southern pride in the Confederacy, in that Master's son, Johnny, and his son-in-law, Kevin, both go off to fight and die 'bravely' for 'the cause'. I kept breaking out of my reading to remember things like, in addition to being the master's son, Johnny was actually Vyry's brother. But she was a slave so that was not real or legal or meaningful in any way. And when the slaves are expected to care for their masters, and in some cases, do genuinely love them in some complicated ways like a family, they have experiences like this that open their eyes to new truths:

They say he was mighty brave on the battlefield and I know his Maw is that proud of him, but I seen what they was fighting for and I knows he fought against me and you and all us colored peoples.

On matters of the heart
Vyry, like many slaves, does not have the luxury of loving freely. She falls for Randall Ware, a free man, but her master is not interested in setting her free. In a super messed up, you're my bastard child kind of way, the master has an even deeper-rooted investment in keeping her at all costs. She is only 'free'-ish to love after manumission, which is when Randall is missing and Innis is there. I loved this line when Vyry meets Innis Brown and he introduces himself.

Vyry did not want to get familiar with this man's name. She had another man's name written in her heart.

Make work your new favorite
One of the other beautiful complexities of this book is that it really plays with nuance. I think it's easy to think "oh, after slavery everything was so great, because slavery was so terrible", and not really put too much thought into the aftereffects on not only that generation but every generation after. This is beautifully played out in Jim's relationship with his mother and Innis, who are used to a backbreaking amount of work having both been slaves. Jim feels like once he's free, he shouldn't have to work so much, which is a fair concern, but one his mother and Innis can do very little about. This exchange was sad, but also cracked me up, because it reminded me of the scene in Elf where his boss tells him, after he says that "Smiling is his favorite" that he should "Make work your new favorite". 

'What you wanta do?'
Jim: 'I wants to play sometime.'
'Play when you gits through working.'
Jim: 'That's just the trouble, I don't never git through.' I felt so bad for him! But I also totally got where his parents were coming from, which is the sign of a beautifully written complexity, I think. 

Barn-raising's and quilting bees
One of the best moments in this book, both because it FINALLY allows Vyry and her family some peace and true, non-KKK burned-out roof over their heads, and because it invokes some lovely fond country memories for me of both quilting bees and Amish barn-raisings, was the scene where the white neighbors offer to help build a house for Vyry and family in the course of a day. 

Every man brought his own tools, his hammer and saw, his plane and lever, his mitering box and his trowel. Some of the women brought small children with them, and every family brought a quilt ready for the frames.

It was hard to say who had had a more satisfying day, the neighbors, who had built a house fo good will with their good deeds, or Vyry and Innis in their humble gratitude for this fine gesture of friendship and understanding from their new neighbors.

When whuppins won't do.
Another beautifully nuanced scene takes place when Jim screws up a chore that has real consequences for the family, and Innis's response is that he gives him a beating. From a social reproduction standpoint, one can hardly be surprised that someone who was taught wrongdoing by beating would then beat someone else for wrongdoing, but understandably, Vyry was not interested in watching her children continue to undergo violence post-slavery, especially at the hands of her husband. Their interactions were one of my favorite scenes in the book, because they made it clear that Vyry was such. a. bad. ass. Here are some excerpts: 

Innis: 'Where is that good for nothing trifling low-down boy? I ain't begun to beat him. I feels like skinning his hide!'

Vyry: 'Do it, Innis Brown, and I'll brain you with this here skillet!'
Deeply shocked, Innis stepped back, completely inarticulate before her rage.

Vyry: 'If you hits him one more time, I ain't gwine be 'sponsible. Don't you hit him nary nother lick or I'll send your soul to Kingdom Come."

Innis: 'You ain't all that much trouble you is kicking up now.'
 'I ain't no trouble at all long as you behaves yourself, but when you comes in here talking bout skinning Jim's hide and slapping the fire outa Minna, you is gwine find out you is done run into me, and that's just the same as meeting you granddaddy drunk. I ain't gwine stand for it. That's what I means.'
 'What you gwine do about it?'
 'Try me and see." Another stadium of seats applauding for Vyry. 

Simply Spectacular Lines

• It was not a night for people to sleep easy.

• Her bare feet moved swiftly across Baptist Hill while her heart clamored after the morning.

• It was dusk-dark when they first gathered and this, in itself, was a crime.

• And she went on singing her mad-mood song.

• Talk had feet and could walk and gossip had wings and could fly.

• Freedom is a secret word I dare not say.

• Around her there was a chapel-hush.

Referents and Reverberations
Caline - "I ain't got no where to go, but I'm gwine. I'm free, and I ain't staying here no more."
Mr. Jacobson 'Do you know where you're going?'
 Vyry 'No sir. We dunno nothing but we got to go."

This interchange reminded me of this exchange from On the Road

Dean: "Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there."
Sal:    "Where we going, man?"
Dean:  "I don't know but we gotta go."

Things/Words New to Me:
batiste - a fine, light linen or cotton fabric 

biddy - a young bird, especially of domestic fowl

clabber - milk that has naturally clotted on souring


fichu - a small triangular shawl, worn around a woman's shoulders and neck

goober peas - peanuts

pellagra - a deficiency disease caused by a lack of nicotinic acid or its precursor tryptophan in the diet; characterized by dermatitis, diarrhea, and mental disturbance, and often linked to overdependence on corn as a staple food.

penny royal - either of two small-leaved plants of the mint family, used in herbal medicine

I'll leave you with a few favorite passages. The introduction to my copy (a 50th anniversary edition) was written by Nikki Giovanni, and I loved this line she drew between a slave woman during the middle passage and present day black culture: 

They had a different language and different ways of looking at things. But they all knew they were defeated. She had to find a way to lift them together. The only thing she had was a moan. And she moaned. That moan would become a Spiritual; that Spiritual would become Jazz; which would become Blues then Rhythm and Blues then Rap. That moan would define not only a people but the nation to which they were sailing. That moan would make those people decide that they should, that they could, live.

And I'll close out with a few bits on Vyry that made me just absolutely love and respect the hell out of her: 

Randall - "Average white man hates a negro, always did, and always will."
Vyry - "I don't believe the world is full of peoples what hates everybody. I just doesn't believe it. I knows lots of times folks doesn't know other folks and they they gits to thinking crazy things, but when you gits up to peoples and gits to know them, you find out they's got kind hearts and tender feelings just like everybody else. Only ways you can keep folks hating is to keep them apart and separated from each other.

I honestly believes that if airy one of them peoples what treated me like dirt when I was a slave would come to my door in the morning hungry, I would feed em. God knows I ain't got no hate in my heart for nobody. I ain't got no time to be hating.

And this last one: 
Peasant and slave, unlettered and untutored, she was nevertheless the best true example of the motherhood of her race, an ever present assurance that nothing could destroy a people whose sons had come from her loins.

Endless applause for the power and resilience and strength of black women, and their beauty, brains, brawn, and depth. I'm off to The Tale of Genji - it's only 1300 pages, so it should be a quick read. ;0)

Keep each other safe, keep faith, and get to know each other. No time to hate, friends. Good night!