A review by blendedbydesignreads
Queen by David Stevens, Alex Haley
5.0
[bc:Queen|154710|Queen|Alex Haley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327991401l/154710._SY75_.jpg|1176308]
If you like Black-historical fiction and ancestry told in a way that feels personal, you'll love Queen.
The first thing I really enjoyed about the book, was the break up of sections into four parts: Bloodlines, Merging, Queen and A Wife and Mother, Loved
I found Part One, Bloodlines, to be an integral part of the story in that it laid the frame as to why and how Queen's Irish descendants made their way to the US. As the story progresses, I was often brought back to James Jackson's (Queen's grandfather) fight against oppression and his disgust and frustrations of the rich ruling class and the affect it had on the peasants and the poor. Caught up in these discriminations during his youth, he was terrified of the abuse of power, and convinced by his best friend that even though the peasants only had pitchforks, "We are many and they are few, and it is better to die for what you believe in than live in bondage."
After a row with the British, Jamie (preferring James as his American name), is banished from Ireland, and takes his chances in America, and very quickly forgets the lessons of his earlier angst against those that have.
Part Two, Merging, while not my favourite part of the book, is that space where Alex Haley does what only he can do, weave a tale of a family's legacy in a way that exposes all the dirt, pomp, drama and scandal that is the backbone of America. Merging was an eye opening section for me in that many of the nuances of how systemic racism came to be are addressed in the exploration of one Southern State, American family, Queen's lineage. Merging is race and slave relations. Merging is a looking glass into the generational and regional attitudes towards enslavement, by both the enslaved and their 'owners'.
Merging is also a look at what's behind door number 3 when it comes to the civil war, an obvious understanding for me now that it wasn't so much about emancipation, as it was about a redistribution of land ownership & wealth; The old familiar dog whistle disguised as equality.
Earlier on in Bloodlines, James had decided to throw 'his slaves' Cap 'n Jack and Annie (Queen's grandparents) a grand wedding, inviting everyone, showing the world and his slaves "the benign face of slavery. They would see that it was not all beatings and lashings and rape and exploitation, but rather a unique and unrivalled management of the land and people."
Later through Merging, his son, Jass (Queen's father), who had once held strong beliefs against slavery and envisioned a day when freedom would ring, had eventually succumbed to the belief that his "utopian ideal was not possible, not in the South at least, perhaps because he thought it might be destructive to what he was supposed to maintain."
The seeds of confederate justification; the right to protect your legacy and the need to protect your privilege.
Part Three, Queen, was a slow start for me mainly because I hated how they took her away from her mother, Easter, to live in the Big House, like that was going to be of some benefit to her. The early years discussed in this section reeked of privilege and white supremacy, and was the course that set Queen on a lifelong identity crisis. While obviously able to pass, a large part of the story, her passing in the big house, amongst her own kin, was never going to happen. While being white as cotton is her blessing and her curse, at least with her mother and 'her people', she'd of learned earlier on who she was and who society was always going to see her as.
There's few bread crumbs as to Queen's recognition, that no matter what she did, or how well she did it, she was always going to be a child of the plantation. This was made obvious when Jass, her father, came home from the war after the South, including their own plantation at The Forks, truly fell from grace. The entire time, Queen was there, giving her all... thinking it was being appreciated and recognized.
Chapter 64, that's when we really see the shift in Queen's understanding of her role in her father's life, and the change in narrative as it related to how she saw her own future within the Jackson family: "He was fond of Queen, fonder of her than of any other of his former slaves, for she was Easter's child, and a living fragment of the memory of his love. That she was also his own child was a lesser issue, and one of lessening importance to him. Although the war had been over only for a few weeks, his discussions with his friends and associates had concentrated all his attention on the survival of his immediate and legal family in the postwar years.
The rest of this part of the book is hard. Queen lives in squalor and heartbreak, with the lack of capacity to make effective decisions, due to what we know now as a symptom of extreme trauma. When the book first came out, I mighta thought she was simply immature and needy. Now I understand her to be broken and without any real sense of acceptance. It must be said of all the people that came in and out of her life, I'm left wondering whatever happened to Alice and Joyce, two women who took her in, one hoping to teach her how to pass as white, the other hoping to teach Queen how to see herself for who she really was. "I love being me," she said. "I tried being the other side, and now I love being black."
The book closes out with part four, A Wife and Mother, Loved. There's a simplicity in how the book ends that feels full. There's an understanding that while Queen would always be at the mercy of her demons, her finding a family of her own was the balm she needed to carry through. Queen learns to love, and from that she finds personal happiness and self respect.
I'll be carrying space for the memory of Queen and the shadows of the plantation babies, bi-racially dispossessed, searching for home in the skin they're in, for years to come.
If you like Black-historical fiction and ancestry told in a way that feels personal, you'll love Queen.
The first thing I really enjoyed about the book, was the break up of sections into four parts: Bloodlines, Merging, Queen and A Wife and Mother, Loved
I found Part One, Bloodlines, to be an integral part of the story in that it laid the frame as to why and how Queen's Irish descendants made their way to the US. As the story progresses, I was often brought back to James Jackson's (Queen's grandfather) fight against oppression and his disgust and frustrations of the rich ruling class and the affect it had on the peasants and the poor. Caught up in these discriminations during his youth, he was terrified of the abuse of power, and convinced by his best friend that even though the peasants only had pitchforks, "We are many and they are few, and it is better to die for what you believe in than live in bondage."
After a row with the British, Jamie (preferring James as his American name), is banished from Ireland, and takes his chances in America, and very quickly forgets the lessons of his earlier angst against those that have.
Part Two, Merging, while not my favourite part of the book, is that space where Alex Haley does what only he can do, weave a tale of a family's legacy in a way that exposes all the dirt, pomp, drama and scandal that is the backbone of America. Merging was an eye opening section for me in that many of the nuances of how systemic racism came to be are addressed in the exploration of one Southern State, American family, Queen's lineage. Merging is race and slave relations. Merging is a looking glass into the generational and regional attitudes towards enslavement, by both the enslaved and their 'owners'.
Merging is also a look at what's behind door number 3 when it comes to the civil war, an obvious understanding for me now that it wasn't so much about emancipation, as it was about a redistribution of land ownership & wealth; The old familiar dog whistle disguised as equality.
Earlier on in Bloodlines, James had decided to throw 'his slaves' Cap 'n Jack and Annie (Queen's grandparents) a grand wedding, inviting everyone, showing the world and his slaves "the benign face of slavery. They would see that it was not all beatings and lashings and rape and exploitation, but rather a unique and unrivalled management of the land and people."
Later through Merging, his son, Jass (Queen's father), who had once held strong beliefs against slavery and envisioned a day when freedom would ring, had eventually succumbed to the belief that his "utopian ideal was not possible, not in the South at least, perhaps because he thought it might be destructive to what he was supposed to maintain."
The seeds of confederate justification; the right to protect your legacy and the need to protect your privilege.
Part Three, Queen, was a slow start for me mainly because I hated how they took her away from her mother, Easter, to live in the Big House, like that was going to be of some benefit to her. The early years discussed in this section reeked of privilege and white supremacy, and was the course that set Queen on a lifelong identity crisis. While obviously able to pass, a large part of the story, her passing in the big house, amongst her own kin, was never going to happen. While being white as cotton is her blessing and her curse, at least with her mother and 'her people', she'd of learned earlier on who she was and who society was always going to see her as.
There's few bread crumbs as to Queen's recognition, that no matter what she did, or how well she did it, she was always going to be a child of the plantation. This was made obvious when Jass, her father, came home from the war after the South, including their own plantation at The Forks, truly fell from grace. The entire time, Queen was there, giving her all... thinking it was being appreciated and recognized.
Chapter 64, that's when we really see the shift in Queen's understanding of her role in her father's life, and the change in narrative as it related to how she saw her own future within the Jackson family: "He was fond of Queen, fonder of her than of any other of his former slaves, for she was Easter's child, and a living fragment of the memory of his love. That she was also his own child was a lesser issue, and one of lessening importance to him. Although the war had been over only for a few weeks, his discussions with his friends and associates had concentrated all his attention on the survival of his immediate and legal family in the postwar years.
The rest of this part of the book is hard. Queen lives in squalor and heartbreak, with the lack of capacity to make effective decisions, due to what we know now as a symptom of extreme trauma. When the book first came out, I mighta thought she was simply immature and needy. Now I understand her to be broken and without any real sense of acceptance. It must be said of all the people that came in and out of her life, I'm left wondering whatever happened to Alice and Joyce, two women who took her in, one hoping to teach her how to pass as white, the other hoping to teach Queen how to see herself for who she really was. "I love being me," she said. "I tried being the other side, and now I love being black."
The book closes out with part four, A Wife and Mother, Loved. There's a simplicity in how the book ends that feels full. There's an understanding that while Queen would always be at the mercy of her demons, her finding a family of her own was the balm she needed to carry through. Queen learns to love, and from that she finds personal happiness and self respect.
I'll be carrying space for the memory of Queen and the shadows of the plantation babies, bi-racially dispossessed, searching for home in the skin they're in, for years to come.