Fountaindale Public Library

Things past telling, a novel, Sheila Williams

eng

no index present

fiction

Things past telling

1322199702

Sheila Williams

Thorndike Press large print Black voices

a novel

"Born in West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century, Maryam Prescilla Grace survives capture, enslavement, the Atlantic crossing, and a brief stint as a pirate's ward, acting as both a spy and translator. Maryam learns midwifery from a Caribbean-born woman. Those skills allow her to sometimes transcend the racial and class barriers of her enslavement, as she tries to balance the lives and health of her own people with the cruel economic mandates of the slave holders. Throughout her life, Maryam gains and loses her homeland, her family, her culture, her husband, her lovers, and her children. Yet as the decades pass, this tenacious woman never loses her sense of self."--Back cover

PART I: IN THE BEFORE TIME: Liberty Township, Highland County, Ohio May 1870 -- Man Killer -- Little Bird -- Ouidah -- Home -- The Tenth Day -- Carolina Cove, Queen's Bay, Jamaica About 1769 -- Caesar -- The Black Mary -- Caesar's Key -- Little One -- Medicine Woman, Too -- 1 Female Abt 16 Yrs Dark Well Formed -- North From Savannah -- PART II: THE DAUGHTER OF A STRANGE GOD: -- White Maple Grove, Chesapeake County, Virginia -- The Border Land -- Once in a while they'd give us a li'l piece of Sat'day evenin' to wash out clothes in the branch--Mary Reynolds -- Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.--Jeremiah 4:3, King James Version -- Patience -- Cloudsplitter -- The Wedding -- James's Wife -- Foreknower -- PART III: WISE WOMAN: Tomorrow -- The Scotsman -- Ned -- Baby Edward -- But They Will Not All Be Yours -- Maryam's Boy -- The Indian's Cave -- Alexander Edward McCulloch Grace -- PART IV: MOMMA GRACE: The River -- Partus Sequitur Ventrem -- Blackjack -- Eaton's Stop, Highland County, Ohio Summer, 1870 -- Acknowledgments -- About the Author

adult