Book For The Week - 05/01/12

Wrench: A Novel

by

Dolen Perkins-Valdez































Wench: A Novel by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the book selection for my library reading group for May.  I started reading it on my kindle a couple weeks ago thinking it would take me awhile to get through it.  Instead I flew through the book!  It very much held my interest.  I can't really say I liked the story line.  It is an extremely sad one.   It is about a resort in Ohio prior to the civil war where southern slave owners took their favorite slave girl on vacation without their wives.   Historically this resort existed.  But the story is about the friendship of four fictional  black women who were taken to this place year after year from their various home plantations.   The lesson of how friendship among women can get them through a lot is one of the underlying themes of the book.  There is only one man in the entire novel who is not a total pig.  He is a slave and works with horses.  All the white men are despicable.  Even the one who is supposed to be the nice slave owner is awful.  The book is full of abuse and difficult to read at times.  But the story flows and the strength of the women in the story is clear.  The resort is a real place in history and when it closed it was purchased by a religious body who turned it into a school for black people. Today it is a University.  http://www.wilberforce.edu/home/home.html
Click on the book title and the author's name to follow links to more information.  The following is a video that features the author.