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A review by serendipitysbooks
Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Night Wherever We Go is the story of a small group of enslaved women living on a small, struggling plantation, something we don’t often read about, and the many different ways they find to rebel against the white slaveholders and gain some agency in their own lives, particularly when it came to enforced breeding. I first remember reading about enforced breeding in The Prophets, although that book considered it from the male perspective.
I loved the way the women, especially Nan, Sarah, Patience and Junie were fully realised unique individuals with a different backgrounds, beliefs, personalities, life experiences, hopes and dreams. They were also depicted as a community, sometimes supporting each other, other times holding each other to account. Some sections were narrated from the first person plural perspective, which emphasised this communal aspect of their lives. I think the author also did a good job in her depiction of Lizzie, the plantation owner’s wife, highlighting the incongruity of her railing against the impact of constant childbearing on her own life, while being actively complicit in trying to force it on enslaved women, for her own benefit. The plot of this novel encompassed the 1860 Texas Troubles, a group panic among slaveholders about an alleged coordinated rebellion by the enslaved, something for which actual evidence has never been found. I had not heard of this before and I always love it when I learn something new via my fiction reading. What some will consider magical realism and what others will see as traditional power and spirituality, plays a key role in the some parts of the plot. This won’t be to every reader’s taste.
I loved the way the women, especially Nan, Sarah, Patience and Junie were fully realised unique individuals with a different backgrounds, beliefs, personalities, life experiences, hopes and dreams. They were also depicted as a community, sometimes supporting each other, other times holding each other to account. Some sections were narrated from the first person plural perspective, which emphasised this communal aspect of their lives. I think the author also did a good job in her depiction of Lizzie, the plantation owner’s wife, highlighting the incongruity of her railing against the impact of constant childbearing on her own life, while being actively complicit in trying to force it on enslaved women, for her own benefit. The plot of this novel encompassed the 1860 Texas Troubles, a group panic among slaveholders about an alleged coordinated rebellion by the enslaved, something for which actual evidence has never been found. I had not heard of this before and I always love it when I learn something new via my fiction reading. What some will consider magical realism and what others will see as traditional power and spirituality, plays a key role in the some parts of the plot. This won’t be to every reader’s taste.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Violence, and Slavery