Review by Booklist Review
In 1852 Texas, six enslaved Black women toil for their master and mistress, the Harlows. The six women include Nan, the oldest, who is a doctoring woman and cook; Serah, who, going on 17, is the youngest; and Lulu, Junie, Patience, and Alice. Peyton's first novel expertly explores the details of the women's typically quiet, quotidian lives as they work in the fields and spend evenings sewing. Things take on a darker turn, however, when Mr. Harlow hires a Black stockman to impregnate the women, a plan foiled by Nan. Meanwhile, Serah meets Noah, also an enslaved Black, and the two fall in love. He pleads with her to flee to Mexico with him. When she refuses, he sets out on his own, writing her imaginary letters that record his quest. The novel moves among the various points of view, although some chapters are told, interestingly, in the first-person plural by an unnamed narrator. The result is an evocative work of historical fiction distinguished by its setting and empathetic treatment of its multiple characters.
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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Peyton's powerful if uneven debut unfurls on a floundering Texas plantation in the years leading up to the Civil War. Six Black women are enslaved to a white family, the Harlows, whom the women refer to as "the Lucys" (as in Lucifer). Among the enslaved are Patience, Nan, and Serah, and a chunk of the novel is conveyed in first-person plural as they're forced by the Lucys to breed with traveling "stockman" Zeke. Nan, trained in medicines, helps the others avoid pregnancy via herbal treatments, and after a second failed attempt, Zeke never returns. The women also sneak away from the plantation at night for clandestine gatherings, and, at one of them, Serah falls for Noah, a worker at a neighboring farm who longs to escape to Mexico. Meanwhile, the Lucys purchase two men, Monroe and Isaac, whom they marry to Serah and Patience, hoping they'll provide offspring to sell off. As a meditation on motherhood and bodily autonomy, this mostly succeeds, particularly in the novel's closing chapters, yet the author's choice to frequently shift perspective from the women to an omniscient narrator doesn't quite work. Still, it's clear Peyton has much talent to burn. Agent: Henry Dunow; Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
To counter financial setbacks, the owners of a Texas plantation decide to hire a stockman to impregnate the plantation's six enslaved women. The women rebel, secretly agreeing to chew cotton root clippings to prevent pregnancy. But their plan will backfire--and jeopardize them all--if any one of them bears a child. From CUNY Writers' Institute graduate Peyton.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A searing debut novel that explores the inner lives of a community of enslaved women in Texas in the decade leading up to the Civil War. Straining under the weight of mounting debts, plantation owners Charles and Lizzie Harlow--called "the Lucys" by the people they enslave because they were the "spawn of Lucifer"--are intent on "breeding" their slaves Junie, Patience, Lulu, Alice, Serah, and Nan. First, Zeke arrives, "trailing behind Mr. Lucy like a shadow," and the women are made to have sex with him. Then there are the half-starved and ashen Isaac and Monroe, to whom the Lucys "give" Patience and Serah as wives. Increasingly desperate, the women discreetly seek out the counsel of the cook Nan for elixirs that promise to weaken virility and cotton root, a natural remedy for getting "caught" with child. The men themselves must face the contempt of the women and the shame of being shuttled from plantation to plantation like little more than bulls or horses with the sole purpose of producing offspring, forbidden to think of the wives and children they had to leave behind. The glimmers of hope offered by true love, solidarity, and the distant promise of emancipation become both solace and weapons, powerful enough to make the women "reckless in thought and deed"--tempting them, at times, to take matters violently into their own hands. As the summer heat builds, slave insurrections are on the rise, and the Lucys become increasingly desperate themselves, coming closer and closer to discovering the women's secrets. Peyton weaves through the minds and spirits of her large cast of characters with insight and ease. The novel moves deftly between the third person and a collective "we" narrative, revealing the women's intimate interconnectedness and the intersectional interplay of age, race, gender, religion, and social status in the struggle to survive amid the horrors of life on the plantation. Alternately suspenseful and poetic, this novel marks the beginning of a promising career for Peyton. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
