Product Description

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Color of Water comes a powerful page-turner about a runaway slave and a determined slave catcher.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1176001 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-05
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 9
• Binding: Audio CD

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Escaped slaves, free blacks, slave-catchers and plantation owners weave a tangled web of intrigue and adventure in bestselling memoirist (The Color of Water) McBride's intricately constructed and impressive second novel, set in pre–Civil War Maryland. Liz Spocott, a beautiful young runaway slave, suffers a nasty head wound just before being nabbed by a posse of slave catchers. She falls into a coma, and, when she awakes, she can see the future—from the near-future to Martin Luther King to hip-hop—in her dreams. Liz's visions help her and her fellow slaves escape, but soon there are new dangers on her trail: Patty Cannon and her brutal gang of slave catchers, and a competing slave catcher, nicknamed The Gimp, who has a surprising streak of morality. Liz has some friends, including an older woman who teaches her The Code that guides runaways; a handsome young slave; and a wild inhabitant of the woods and swamps. Kidnappings, gunfights and chases ensue as Liz drifts in and out of her visions, which serve as a thoughtful meditation on the nature of freedom and offer sharp social commentary on contemporary America. McBride hasn't lost his touch: he nails the horrors of slavery as well as he does the power of hope and redemption. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

Reviewed by David Anthony Durham

James McBride's famous memoir, The Color of Water, was a personal examination of the author's upbringing in a large, biracial family. Looking back at the life of his white, Jewish mother, McBride chronicled a good part of the last century, from the pre-World War II South, to New York through the turbulent '60s, right up to the Clinton era. His first novel, Miracle at St. Anna (which is currently being filmed by Spike Lee), followed a black regiment through turbulent events in Italy late in World War II. It was a book of considerable breadth and character diversity, telling the tales of black and white soldiers, of Italian resistance fighters and peasants, and of Germans watching Hitler's vision die before their eyes.

McBride is just as inclusive and ambitious in his new novel, Song Yet Sung. The book begins: "On a grey morning in March 1850, a colored slave named Liz Spocott dreamed of the future." With that, McBride places us back in a terrible time in American history and introduces a character that would seem to merit our pity: a slave woman in Maryland, trapped in a sinister system while living so very close to freedom. This is the well-documented territory of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. With them in mind, it's easy to assume Liz is praying for her freedom and the chance to have a family of her own.

But her dreams are not so personal. She has been granted the gift (or curse) of prophecy: "And it was not pleasant. She dreamed of Negroes driving horseless carriages on shiny rubber wheels with music booming throughout, and fat black children who smoked odd-smelling cigars and walked around with pistols in their pockets and murder in their eyes . . . and colored men dressed in garish costumes like children, playing odd sporting games and bragging like drunkards -- every bit of pride, decency, and morality squeezed clean out of them."

Sound familiar? With that opening to this powerful novel, McBride makes it clear that he is not just interested in staring into an antique, distant past. This past is living. It is linked to the present, and the work ain't done yet.

Liz has taken a musket ball to the head, killed a dog with her bare hands and been captured -- not by "legitimate" slave catchers, but by a criminal gang run by Patty Cannon, an engaging anti-heroine based on an actual person. With the help of her fellow captives, Liz escapes, and from that point the story's diverse cast is stirred into action, with Liz at the center of the storm.

Patty and her gang are on Liz's trail, but they aren't the only ones. Liz's "owner" wants the beautiful young woman back as well. He hires a retired slave catcher of great renown, Denwood Long (a.k.a. the Gimp). Long is a crotchety loner, "a lean, rangy figure in oilskin hat and jacket" with a past full of pain. He is a master observer who reads truth or lies in the motions of people's hands. Sly and winning when he needs to be, he is also icily threatening when that will get the job done faster.

Not everyone is out to enslave Liz. Amber, a slave waiting impatiently to fly for freedom himself, does what he can to help her. Amber's "owner," Kathleen Sullivan, mourns the recent death of her husband and struggles with her own warm feelings for her slaves. And then there is Woolman: "half clothed, ripe and muscular, black as ebony, with pearl-white teeth, his sculpted body shaped and chiseled by years of hunting." He roams the marshes outside of human civilization, a mythic character said to lead a pet alligator around on a leash. He has more than a few superhuman qualities, which he brings to play as he enters the fray.

How do all these characters' stories combine? In a complex, ever-tightening, increasingly suspenseful web that rises toward a dramatic climax. Mixed in with the action, McBride shows the complexity of his characters' inner lives and dilemmas -- particularly his black characters. The cadence of their speech, the way they interact, the small details of their thoughts, desires, fears and hopes: These the author renders with exquisite ease. In scene after scene McBride shows the many ways blacks worked to aid each other to freedom. "The Code" is part of this, a secret language of actions, signs, symbols and words by which the slaves communicate messages of resistance right under their masters' noses.

The novel does have its weaker moments. At times McBride's exposition seems rushed, as if he's got more information to give than time to give it. His action scenes can feel like stage directions for a film. Some may groan that Liz's prescience is forced, especially as she sees further and further into the future, right up to bejeweled rappers spitting violence and misogyny. And some may point out the convenience of Liz's only predicting a future up to our present. The moment the ink was dry on the printing, Song Yet Sung was being eclipsed by current events. (Liz does not, for example, mention a future in which a black, female Nobel Prize-winning author announces her support for a biracial presidential candidate with an African name.)

But McBride's engagement with the historical continuum provides a new slant on an old subject. He may have set his novel in the 1850s, but he is writing about the hurdles we yet face. When Liz says, "I said I would tell you of tomorrow. I didn't say tomorrow wasn't gonna hurt," she is speaking to us. While McBride may not have his fictional character's prophetic gifts, he does have the ability to captivate, compel and challenge those of us still working to shape those tomorrows.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
After a moving tribute to his Jewish mother (The Color of Water, 1996) and a novel about African American soldiers in World War II (Miracle at St. Anna, 2003), jazz musician and composer James McBride reaches even further into the past to explore the complexities and unpredictability of human nature against the backdrop of slavery. Based on actual historical figures, including Harriet Tubman, McBride’s novel starts slowly but soon develops into a suspenseful, action-packed adventure. Some critics objected to the blatant social criticism in Liz’s dreams of modern-day African Americans (described by the Minneapolis Star Tribune as “frankly offensive imagery and the polemic they clearly represent”), and a few cited flat characters and overly modern idioms. However, throughout this compelling and thought-provoking novel, McBride skillfully weaves his timely message that slavery can persist in many forms.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

an instant classic
James McBride writes like the superb jazz musician that he is; the words flow with the sinuous enchantment of an inspired saxophone lick.

McBride has opened a channel into the minds of slaves, slave catchers, and others along Maryland's eastern shore circa 1850. The swamps are choked with intrigue and suspense as runaways struggle to escape from the hands of their callous, greedy pursuers.

One slave hunter is a woman. McBride draws an incredible picture of evil that is somehow tricked out with a few admirable qualities. Very few, but enough to give readers a glimmer of our own conflicted emotions.

The central figure, Liz the Dreamer, possesses a tragic gift. She can see the future and she sees her people will still be enslaved, even today.

McBride has penned a work for the ages.

A Must Read
There is an amazing book of short stories from Eduardo Galeano called Book of Embraces (Norton Paperback). In one of the most amazing vignettes, "Celebration of the Human Voice 2", Galeano talks about life in a Uruguayan prison. Prisoners, unable to speak, invented their own communication system with fingers. Galeano writes, "When it is genuine, when it is born of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice". I kept on thinking of that quote in James McBride's powerful, moving, amazing new book, "Song Yet Sung", for his characters, many of whom have no voice, still find ways to speak across the miles, and across the pages.

This novel starts with Liz, who is nicknamed the Dreamer, and her gift of seeing the future is well known and well feared in pre-Civil War Maryland. Captured by a notorious slave catcher named Patty Cannon, Liz meets an old woman who spins her own fantastic tale of "the Code", none of which makes sense either to us or Liz. Determined to escape from her attic confines, Liz makes a daring move and frees herself and everyone else in the attic, thus starting the rest of the story, which is a hunt for Liz.

Liz's former owner and secret paramour hires a succesful slave catcher himself, Denwood Long, unfortunately named "the Gimp", who has a haunted past himself. Along with him, Patty Cannon gathers her own posse of people to ruthlessly hunt Liz. There is even a backwoods "bogey man", called the Woolman, who comes into the story in a very believable and chilling way.

However, it's Liz where much of the theme of the story lies. It's in her dreams that began to intrigue me. Here we have a slave, on the run, who defies wanting to be put on the Underground Railroad because her dreams of life for African-Americans up north, she sees, isn't good at all. McBride's reflections on some aspects of black culture intrigue. Slaves so longed for their freedom, and yet, look at where it has lead some of them. (Coincidentally, I have started watching HBO's visionary series The Wire - The Complete First Season). Will Liz decide, against her visions of the future, to escape?

Secondly, McBride's description of "The Code" is simply amazing. I think this is the first novel that I've read where the path to the Underground Railroad was so brilliantly shown. It really was an amazing thing how the "Code" developed, and was known and understood by many. Simply by word of mouth, during a time of intense trial, people found their voice and sang in a way that saved many a life.

Song Yet Sung is not only a reflection of culture, of life in the slave south, and a gripping adventure story, but it also is a celebration of the human spirit. As the book draws to an end, you do feel as if you've spent time in another world. Rich with descriptions, deeply felt characters, tension, and tenderness, Song Yet Sung will be a book that shall be with us for years on end, and hopefully, discussed, examined, to unlock its deep, rich treasures.

A Beautiful Melody
James McBride's Song Yet Sung is a great addition to the genre of African American literature. McBride weaves a complex story that begins with runaway slave, Liz Spocott. Liz is near death when she is captured by a slave trader. She finds herself imprisoned with a small group of slaves. In this group is a `woman with no name' who tries to explain the much guarded slavery `Code' to Liz, but Liz is confused by the woman's curious ranting and is overcome by dreams of the future. Liz inadvertently frees herself and the group of slaves. She continues to have strange dreams of tomorrow. The news of her dreams spread as she makes her way through the unfamiliar countryside. Liz's journey becomes entwined with many others: slaves unveiling parts of the Code to her; slave catchers seeking to capture her; and various members of the community that are unknowingly linked together through Liz.

McBride touches on the past, present, and future of our racially divided country. Song Yet Sung has a lyrical style that runs the full range of emotions and shows the complexity of the human spirit. This wonderfully written work will strike a chord with readers.

Reviewed by M. P. McKinney
APOOO BookClub