She also watches him through a spyglass while he plays sadistic, semi-sexual games with the early teenage male slaves. She describes the difficulties of her life with him he has a child with one of the house slaves, Sarah. Manon is the daughter of a slave owner and her husband (who she hates). The book is in three parts the build up to the slave revolt, the revolt and the aftermath.

It is rather brief and reads very easily, despite the horrors it describes. The novel is from the perspective of Manon Gaudet, a plantation owners wife. I was absolutely transfixed by this tight and eloquent novel as it explores the amoral underbelly of a system that victimized other humans and debased their oppressors. The tension is palpable between Manon Gaudet, her plantation owner husband and Sarah and it’s played out against a backdrop of a looming slave rebellion. Because Sarah’s voice was so rarely heard, it was all the more astounding when she finally reveals her own hatred of the Gaudets. As a slave, Sarah isn’t allowed the luxury of divulging her inner emotions. “Property” as a title fittingly describes the main premise of this book as it reveals the marital subjugation of Manon Gaudet, a bitter and unhappy wife of a sugar plantation owner and Sarah, a slave girl given to her as a wedding gift (and the mother of two illegitimate children from Manon’s husband).īoth women seethe with hatred and rage over their domination, although we mostly only hear from Manon. The time period is 1828 and set in Louisiana nearly 40 years before the Civil War. The evils and barbarity of slavery are effectively conveyed in this powerful and spellbinding novel.

Property by valerie martin