Sweetsmoke

I've been anticipating reading David Fuller's first novel Sweetsmoke since it was released by Hyperion Books at the end of August. I was captured by the cover image - work worn, lined, loosely clasped hands and I wondered the story behind them. Fuller spent eight years researching this amazing novel. It tells the tale of Cassius, a slave and carpenter who lives on a tobacco plantation in Virginia. It is 1862 and the Civil War is in full swing. Interestingly Fuller found family connections to both sides of the War during his research. After suffering a brutal punishment at the hands of his master Hoke Howard, Cassius is allowed to heal at the home of Emoline, a free black woman. Emoline secretly teaches Cassius to read and write. It is these secret lessons that ignite a need for knowledge, a want to know the world beyond the plantation. "Cassius drove himself toward his journey in a step-by-step fashion, willing to risk everything, to know. To know." When Emoline is murdered and it appears that no one cares to find the killer, Cassius vows he will find the killer and seek justice for Emoline. This is a story with many threads, all of then engrossing. Life on the plantation, attitudes and the War are all portrayed with accuracy and detail, bringing to life this period in history. Fuller has also brought to life the lot of a slave, humanizing historical fact, in all it's shame. Although all the characters evoke strong emotions, it is the character of Cassius that kept me reading non stop. His journey towards knowledge and justice, combined with the mystery of Emoline's death is a gripping tale. Sweetsmoke will be joining another similar book - "Rush Home Road" by Canadian Lori Lansens on my favourites list.

Until reading this book I was not a fan of civil war novels. This is not to say that I was not interested in the lives of those who were enslaved during this period. The author has brought this era alive for me. As I read, I felt even more outraged at the injustice and atrocities against those who were enslaved. It was a painful read but I feel necessary. I now feel in my heart, what before I only understood intellectually. The story was also uplifting as I witnessed the life of Cassius, who despite the atrocity he and others suffered just because their skin color was different, still believed in freedom and justice.

Cassius, the carpenter/slave in a Virginia tobacco plantation, strides like a colossus though this novel set during the Civil War. With little opportunity to exercise freedom without, he nourishes a depth of thought inside himself. After the brutal loss of his young wife and son, he becomes a man apart, but the murder of the free black healer Emoline, who has saved his life and secretly taught him to read, breaks him from his reticence; in cautious but relentless determination, he will seek out the killer. So powerful in this character that other characters stand slightly in shadow from his light like one of the great Shakespearean protagonists. And there are many characters in his journey. Emancipation is just a few years away and the masters protect their human property with a wilder grip as they sense the end nearing. Yet the complex heart of this book is Cassius's relationship with his master Hoke Howard. There is a terrible intensity in their first scene together: the white man has every power in the world over his carpenter slave who has built everything in his study yet the slave has a strange spiritual power over the master. Every word they speak, however casual, is triggered with the possibility of danger to Cassius yet by some strange psychology, though Hoke Howard mentally plays with his slave, he defers from harming him. "He owns me," Cassius says late in the book. "He controls me," and another man answers, "That is merely the law. This was deeper. He wanted your soul." It is not until well into the story that the reader begins to understand the true horror of what Hoke has done to this slave which he can never admit or ever ask for forgiveness. Though in shadow of this great Hamlet of a character, others are also carefully drawn: Howard's bitter unloved wife who lives on laudanum and vengeance, the complicated dynamics of the house and field slaves, and many others. Nature and the sounds and smells of woods and plantation are vivid. Still, when we are alone with Cassius struggling through the rain on a journey or smoking a handmade cigar, deep in his mind as in a soliloquy, the book finds its greatest power. He is a true hero who stands up for what he believes is right, whatever may come.

The much awaited Civil War novel, Sweetsmoke, by screenwriter, David Fuller, explores slave/carpenter Cassius Hoke's day-to-day existence on Plantation Sweetsmoke in Virginia. Cassius learns about the death of Emoline, the freedwoman who nursed him back to health and taught him to read and write. When it is apparent it is murder, he sets out to avenge her death. As the story progressed, I became convinced why a black woman's death, slave or free, would have a devastating affect on both black and white, and especially Cassius, as the author drew a picture of Emoline as savior and guardian angel, yet a flawed and vulnerable woman. Emoline and Cassius have a special bond through his owner and her former owner, Hoke Howard, the tortured master of Sweetsmoke. Cassius plots his investigation carefully, yet methodically, never wavering from his mission to find the truth. For every answer Cassius gets, there arises another question; just who was Emoline, other than the woman who rescued him after the most devastating time of his life? A fortunate teller, a healer, and a risk taker; she taught him to read and write and exposed him to literature at a time when it was against the law to teach a slave to read, but Emoline had many secrets. Cassius' past and present collide amidst the superstitious beliefs of the slaves; there is an aura of bad luck that surrounds him. But while he is somewhat of a pariah, he is also a trusted slave and respected among the field hands and the house servants. Nevertheless, his life as a slave is no less easy; the daily existence to not only stay alive, but to stay one step ahead of those who own him. With the need to not only hide his intelligence, but to downplay it for mere survival, Cassius smiles and flatters, manipulates and connives, while courting freedom. Cassius thinks he finds a kindred spirit in Quashee, a newly arrived slave, and uses his influence to raise her status on the plantation. She also unwittingly helps him in his dangerous quest of finding Emoline's murderer. There was great detail in this novel. Several aspects of slave life were examined; the courting rituals of slaves, which could be political, the social and cultural aspects, the subterfuge and outwitting for self-preservation; interaction between slaves and freedmen, field hands and house slaves. Slaves turned on each other but also helped each other and kept each others' secrets. Readers also see how slaves played a part in helping those who sought freedom as conductors in the Underground Railroad and how many were agents of one kind of another in the war that was being fought between the Confederacy and the Union. Cassius stealthily goes from plantation to plantation and into town, picking up bits of news and gossip, when fate steps in and he is sent to the battlefields by his owner. His journey is long, arduous, difficult and dangerous but it is a means to an end for Cassius; two fold, to find the truth and a quest for freedom. Fuller embo

The advanced praise and publisher's accolades for Sweetsmoke are not unwarranted. David Fuller has penned a rich, full-bodied story that centers on a slave's (Cassius) desire to identify the killer of a free-woman who is endeared to him via bewildering circumstances. To its credit, the novel goes deeper than the average "whodunit." It is the equally complex sub-plots, the noble and conniving characters, the accuracy of the historical content, and the wonderfully imagined social network of life, love, loss, and pain on a Virginia Plantation at the onset of the Civil War that add layers of depth and incredible breadth to the story. The politics and racial attitudes of the day are illustrated well in the book which also contained some of the most vivid battlefield scenes I have read. So often books of this nature cover the master-slave relationship in the perfunctory manner, but Fuller exceeded my expectations by creating some very unique relationships among the slaves and the slave owners. Another aspect that I respected was the equal weight given to the happenings inside the "big house" as well as the slave quarters. He also vigilantly broached valid but unpopular topics such as as slaves supporting the Confederacy and the manipulation, betrayal, and infighting within the slave community. He also showed us the intelligence, bravery, and cunning of Cassius as he navigated the plantation and the free world. Bottom line: There are several reviews posted already that enthusiastically endorse the novel and I agree wholeheartedly with them. Most likely this novel will make my personal Top Reads list for this year -- I enjoyed it for the history lessons, the mystery, and the characters. This book is firmly on equal footing with The March by E.L. Doctorow, Song Yet Sung by James McBride, and Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke. Recommended for historical fiction fans interested in the US slave institution during the Civil War era.