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Amistad
January 2010
On Sale: January 5, 2010
304 pages ISBN: 006170654X EAN: 9780061706547 Hardcover
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Fiction
Tawawa House in many respects is like any other American
resort before the Civil War. Situated in Ohio, this idyllic
retreat is particularly nice in the summer when the Southern
humidity is too much to bear. The main building, with its
luxurious finishes, is loftier than the white cottages that
flank it, but then again, the smaller structures are better
positioned to catch any breeze that may come off the pond.
And they provide more privacy, which best suits the needs of
the Southern white men who vacation there every summer with
their black, enslaved mistresses. It's their open secret. Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at Tawawa House. They
have become friends over the years as they reunite and share
developments in their own lives and on their respective
plantations. They don't bother too much with questions of
freedom, though the resort is situated in free territory–but
when truth-telling Mawu comes to the resort and starts
talking of running away, things change. To run is to leave behind everything these women value
most–friends and families still down South–and for some it
also means escaping from the emotional and psychological
bonds that bind them to their masters. When a fire on the
resort sets off a string of tragedies, the women of Tawawa
House soon learn that triumph and dehumanization are
inseparable and that love exists even in the most inhuman,
brutal of circumstances–all while they are bearing witness
to the end of an era. An engaging, page-turning, and wholly original novel, Wench
explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of
slavery.
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