The Handsome Road (Plantation Trilogy)

This storyline was somewhat predictable and shared many elements with Gone With The Wind, but I felt it showed a deeper appreciation for what the South went through before, during and after the Civil War. At first I was shocked by the freely used “n-word”, but the author used it in the dialogue between characters, not as part of the narrative.

What was especially poignant to me is the way the book depicts the difference between the slaves and the “po’ white trash”. At one point, the main character realizes that in her position, she is less valuable than a slave and more vulnerable, because if she gets sick, she won’t be cared for, she can become homeless if she can’t pay the rent, and everything she needs to survive she needs to pay for with money that is very hard to come by. This is why so many low-income, uneducated white people are so rabidly racist and xenophobic. The seeds of that were planted long ago.