Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
By Dera Williams • Mar 1st, 2010 • Category: Book Review 2010 •
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Dolen Perkins-Valdez makes a formidable debut in the tale of four women poised on the edge of slavery and freedom in Wench. Based on meticulous research, the author presents Tawawa House, which has oral history as a resort where southern slave owners brought their families during the summer months to Ohio. Using artistic license, Perkins-Valdez imagines the slave masters bringing their slave mistresses where they could openly be with them.
Lizzie believes what she and Drayle, her master, has is a love match. She has two children by him and it is her hope that he will free his children. Reenie, the oldest in the group, is resigned to a life of misuse and servitude while Sweet is docile and fragile, forever connected to her master. Then there is Mawu, fiery, wild and rebellious, she provokes the other women to dare think of freedom as a reality. For three summers these women bond in a way they cannot do on their respective plantations in Tennessee and Louisiana because they are the masters’ “women.”
The Northerners are appalled at the blatant mannerisms of the southern men who brazenly parade the slave women. For the women, being among free blacks and so close to freedom gives them both courage and brings on their greatest fears. Phillip, another slave of Drayle’s, finds himself in love with a free woman. Glory, a Quaker and abolitionist, offers her services for escape but when Mawu plans to leave she experiences a betrayal of the worst kind and a public flogging.
The language is easy and fluid as the author paints the Ohio landscape with a wide brush of setting, a sense of place and time, and characters who stir a myriad of emotions in the reader. Slavery is a harsh life and freedom, no matter how elusive, may be the desired outcome. However, the dynamics are not always black and white and I found myself cautioning against judgment. Does one dare chance freedom and leave your children behind? Will a man who claims to love you grant his children freedom? Perkins- Valdez, a professor of writing and post doctoral fellow, has written another chapter of slave history that is accessible and not muddled in social commentary and controversy. I recommend to those who enjoy historical fiction and slave era novels.
Dera R. Williams
APOOO BookClub
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Dera Williams is a writer and lives, works and plays in the Oakland/Bay Area where she works in curriculum at a local community college. She has contributed to several anthologies and journals including Life Spices from Seasoned Sistahs and Honoring Our Black Fathers and has written academic profiles for Greenwood press reference books. She is a reviewer/editor for APOOO Exchange Team and Affaire de Coeur magazine and active in literary events. Her book club affiliations include Marcus Book Club, East Bay Page Turners Book Club and Women of Words Book Club. Her other interests include genealogy, Black history and culture and travel.
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