The Known World

[January 2013]

The Known World, Edward P. Jones

number of voters: 5

percentage of voters who finished the book: 100

highest rating: 9

lowest rating: 6

average rating: 7.45

*****

The evening they gathered for reading group at Megg’s cabin they stretched their tired feet and overworked minds and they relaxed in one another’s companionship. The discussion rambled the well-worn path of The Known World, an antebellum novel that does not begin at the beginning nor conclude at the conclusion.

Megg admitted she had taken notes as she read, to stave off the confusion of the non-linear plot and subtle lack of a main character, though she liked that the author’s cadence had a familiar, Old Testament–like tone. Others echoed Megg’s sentiments: Young Emmalee said she had to slog her way through the pages like a plow through parched earth; Anghella struggled through the thick molasses to get to the sweet cream underneath; Keri found the concept more difficult than getting leaven out of the dough; Kristeena was too busy schooling the young ones to waste the precious daylight hours; Lins was incredulous at first but eventually appreciated the story like cool water on a hot day; and crazy ol’ Ange, well, she was enamored from near the start, but she’s not been right since that mule kicked her in the head... so they say.

To a person, those who had finished the book said they were glad to have read it, even if only because of a singular moment or a particular character or for the experience or knowledge gained. A story about a black slave master—a rarely discussed yet historically accurate figure—is sure to leave an impression of some nature, and by most accounts the opinion was that the author successfully captures the period and dialect.

They conversed for hours, and long after their young ones had retired to their beds the talk still drifted in and out of their ears like long-forgotten dreams, where another world once existed.