Frances E. W. Harper (1825–1911)

This novel spans about 30 years from the 1840/50s to the Reconstruction period (it flashes back and forward in time) and mostly follows people connected to a small Black and mixed race extended family. Unfortunately the title character has very little presence until the second half, but after that her personality really starts to develop. The novel covers both the dispersal of Black families during the period of enslavement, as well as the difficult process of finding your scattered loved ones after emancipation (made miraculously easy in this novel in a quite Dickensian way). There is a love story shoehorned in near the end.

This piece of writing is great--five stars--as a social study of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. It covers all kinds of territory, from questions of passing and privilege, education, colorism, political advocacy, political corruption, prejudice and racially-motivated extrajudicial violence, and very presciently describes an understanding of race as socially constructed and socialized. However, as a novel it's kind of a mess, and I cannot say the plot really drove me to keep reading. I wish its execution as fiction were as strong as the social and political questions it explores. Considered as one of the first major literary works by a nineteenth-century Black woman writer, it's still very well worth reading in spite of my quibbles!… (more)