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A review by passionyoungwrites
Jubilee by Margaret Walker
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
“A war to set us niggers free? What kinda crazy talk is that?”
.
Jubilee is a written history of Vyry living through slavery and seeing freedom. She is the daughter of a white plantation owner and his black mistress (his favorite one 🫣).
.
Reading this was like I was standing around watching things unfold. Vyry as a toddler being raised by others until she was of age to work in the big house. Her struggles with the Mistress, Big Missy, being slapped around and tied up for a mistake that many children would make. Being a maid to her own sister, same age as her. From learning to cook with Aunt Sally and eventually becoming the cook herself. To meeting a black man who is free that promises her marriage and freedom if he can buy her from her father. To living and waiting on the plantation well after slavery ended. To figuring out what life she wanted for herself and her children after the emancipation. To making that dream a reality just for it to be taken from her time after time. To watching her kids have a life that she never did.
.
The most fascinating part of this story is knowing that Margaret Walker wrote this story based on the life of her maternal great - grandmother from the oral recollection from her maternal grandmother!
Not many of us know these stories of what our ancestors endured. Though, I feel that many narratives that involve slavery mostly focus on those that tended to the fields. Where here Vyry was a house slave, very light in color and could pass for white - though she never did. This story allows the reader to see a full picture of slavery, and the struggles that were endured through the eyes of those from inside the house.
Oh how I wished Margaret would have left us more stories to read! And the foreword written by Nikki Giovanni in this 50th Anniversary edition is 👌🏾
.
Jubilee is a written history of Vyry living through slavery and seeing freedom. She is the daughter of a white plantation owner and his black mistress (his favorite one 🫣).
.
Reading this was like I was standing around watching things unfold. Vyry as a toddler being raised by others until she was of age to work in the big house. Her struggles with the Mistress, Big Missy, being slapped around and tied up for a mistake that many children would make. Being a maid to her own sister, same age as her. From learning to cook with Aunt Sally and eventually becoming the cook herself. To meeting a black man who is free that promises her marriage and freedom if he can buy her from her father. To living and waiting on the plantation well after slavery ended. To figuring out what life she wanted for herself and her children after the emancipation. To making that dream a reality just for it to be taken from her time after time. To watching her kids have a life that she never did.
.
The most fascinating part of this story is knowing that Margaret Walker wrote this story based on the life of her maternal great - grandmother from the oral recollection from her maternal grandmother!
Not many of us know these stories of what our ancestors endured. Though, I feel that many narratives that involve slavery mostly focus on those that tended to the fields. Where here Vyry was a house slave, very light in color and could pass for white - though she never did. This story allows the reader to see a full picture of slavery, and the struggles that were endured through the eyes of those from inside the house.
Oh how I wished Margaret would have left us more stories to read! And the foreword written by Nikki Giovanni in this 50th Anniversary edition is 👌🏾