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A review by serendipitysbooks
Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Yellow Wife is the story of Pheby, an enslaved women who was promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday by her father, the plantation owner. Instead she is sold off by his wife and ends up at the notorious Devil’s Half-Acre, part jail, part slave-market. The owner takes her as his mistress and she bears him five children and assists him with some of his business’s operations.
The book did a really good job of highlighting the difficult position Pheby was in, the fine line she had to walk. The jailer treated her better than many enslaved people both in his compound and generally. Yet, she was far from free and if she displeased him or refused to do as he wished he had no compunction threatening her to enforce obedience, frequently using her children as bargaining chips.
Things come to a head when her first love, the father of her oldest son, is captured in the North and sent to the Devil’s Half-Acre. There is real tension in the last few pages as we see Pheby’s plans for their freedom being put into action. The ending is both heart-rending, heart-warming and realistic.
The Author’s Note at the end outlines the inspiration for the story and helps tease out the facts from the fiction. The setting and many of the characters are based on or inspired by real places and real people. A satisfying read overall, although the broad strokes of the plot, characters and themes will be familiar to anyone who has read American historical fiction from this era.
The book did a really good job of highlighting the difficult position Pheby was in, the fine line she had to walk. The jailer treated her better than many enslaved people both in his compound and generally. Yet, she was far from free and if she displeased him or refused to do as he wished he had no compunction threatening her to enforce obedience, frequently using her children as bargaining chips.
Things come to a head when her first love, the father of her oldest son, is captured in the North and sent to the Devil’s Half-Acre. There is real tension in the last few pages as we see Pheby’s plans for their freedom being put into action. The ending is both heart-rending, heart-warming and realistic.
The Author’s Note at the end outlines the inspiration for the story and helps tease out the facts from the fiction. The setting and many of the characters are based on or inspired by real places and real people. A satisfying read overall, although the broad strokes of the plot, characters and themes will be familiar to anyone who has read American historical fiction from this era.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Slavery, and Violence