Louisiana

Jill said, "Here's another Louisiana book -- a fantastic look at antebellum slave-holding and marriage and its effect on the people living in this immoral system. (But I bet you already know about this book!)" No, this is new to me, but it looks good. Here's Jill's review of Property by Valerie Martin."

Set in the surreal heat of the antebellum South during a slave rebellion, Property, which won the Orange Prize, takes the form of a dramatic monologue, bringing to the page a voice rarely heard in American fiction: the voice of a woman slaveholder. Manon Gaudet is pretty and petulant, self-absorbed and bored. She has come to a sugar plantation north of New Orleans as a bride, bringing with her a prized piece of property, the young slave Sarah, only to see Sarah become her husband's mistress and bear his child. As the whispers of a slave rebellion grow louder and more threatening, Manon speaks to us of her past and her present, her longings and dreams -- an uncensored, pitch-perfect voice from the heart of moral darkness.