Description
John Edgar Wideman’s Slaveroad examines how, for centuries, the buying and selling of human beings was legal and how millions of Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported across the Atlantic to serve as slaves. The enduring legacies of this slave road traffic—denied, unacknowledged, misunderstood, repressed—continue to poison the experiences and journeys of all Americans.
In a section of “Slaveroad,” called “Sheppard,” William Henry Sheppard, a descendant of enslaved Virginians, travels back to Africa where he works as a missionary, converting Africans to Christianity alongside his Southern white colleague. Wideman imagines drinking afternoon tea with Lucy Gant Sheppard, William’s wife, who was on her own slaveroad, as she experienced her husband’s adultery with the African women he was trying to convert.
In “Penn Station,” Wideman’s brother, after being confined forty-four years in prison, travels from Pittsburgh to New York. As Wideman awaits his brother, he asks, “How will I distinguish my brother from the dead. Dead passengers on the slaveroad.”
Slaveroad is a book that will inform, challenge, and surprise Wideman fans as well as newcomers to his writing.
Endorsements
“Master of language” — The New York Times
“a fresh perspective of slavery’s impact and a confirmation of Wideman’s exalted status in American letters” — New York magazine
“bruising candor and obsessive originality” — The Wall Street Journal
“A blend of memoir, fiction, history” — The Millions