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A Novel
by Jabari Asim
Book Reviewed by:The Water Dancer meets The Prophets in this spare, gripping, and beautifully rendered novel exploring love and friendship among a group of enslaved Black strivers in the mid-19th century.
They call themselves the Stolen. Their owners call them captives. They are taught their captors' tongues and their beliefs but they have a language and rituals all their own.
In a world that would be allegorical if it weren't saturated in harsh truths, Cato and William meet at Placid Hall, a plantation in an unspecified part of the American South. Subject to the whims of their tyrannical and eccentric captor, Cannonball Greene, they never know what harm may befall them: inhumane physical toil in the plantation's quarry by day, a beating by night, or the sale of a loved one at any moment. It's that cruel practice—the wanton destruction of love, the belief that Black people aren't even capable of loving—that hurts the most.
It hurts the reserved and stubborn William, who finds himself falling for Margaret, a small but mighty woman with self-possession beyond her years. And it hurts Cato, whose first love, Iris, was sold off with no forewarning. He now finds solace in his hearty band of friends, including William, who is like a brother; Margaret; Little Zander; and Milton, a gifted artist. There is also Pandora, with thick braids and long limbs, whose beauty calls to him.
Their relationships begin to fray when a visiting minister with a mysterious past starts to fill their heads with ideas about independence. He tells them that with freedom comes the right to choose the small things—when to dine, when to begin and end work—as well as the big things, such as whom and how to love. Do they follow the preacher and pursue the unknown? Confined in a landscape marked by deceit and uncertainty, who can they trust?
In an elegant work of monumental imagination that will reorient how we think of the legacy of America's shameful past, Jabari Asim presents a beautiful, powerful, and elegiac novel that examines intimacy and longing in the quarters while asking a vital question: What would happen if an enslaved person risked everything for love?
In many ways, Yonder is a place we have been in literature before, but Asim adds several new twists. For one, Placid Hall is a place where skilled laborers live — all slaves weren't of the fields. The author also creates names for the categories of captive and owner: Stolen and Thief. Chapter after chapter, Asim confronts a suppressed history that is still being marginalized. Rituals. Whippings. Horrors. Hate. Brotherhood. Lust. His prose returns humanity to stolen people as he writes of how the slaves at Placid Hall crave love, acceptance, friendship and caring, evoking what bell hooks meant when she wrote, "Love is an action, never simply a feeling."..continued
Full Review
(984 words)
(Reviewed by Valerie Morales).
For American slaves, January 1 was a day to dread. For on that day, many were hired out to new plantations without warning, and some were sold off. Anxiety was rampant the evening before the new year, which was possibly the last time family members would see each other. It was a tumultuous night for parents wondering if their children would be snatched away come morning to fulfill a contract or create revenue for the plantation owner.
Abolitionist journalist William Cooper Nell coined the name "Heartbreak Day" for New Year's Day. A slave named Lewis Clarke said in 1842, "Of all the days in the year, the slaves dread New Year's Day the worst of any." Israel Campbell, who was born a slave in Kentucky and sold to an Ohio couple when he was ...
If you liked Yonder, try these:
by Jesmyn Ward
Published 2024
From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow—comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.
by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Published 2024
Two Black sisters growing up in small-town New England fight to protect their home, their bodies, and their dreams as the Civil Rights Movement sweeps the nation in this "magical, magnificent novel" (Marlon James) from "a startlingly fresh voice" (Jacqueline Woodson).
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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas
"[An] atmospheric tale of unexpected hope." —Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author
Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
Jabari Asim's masterful Yonder has no doubt set our Ancestors to dancing and rejoicing. A compelling and dazzling storyteller, Asim beautifully captures the depth of their bonds, intellect, and unwavering commitment to each other, honoring the fullness of their humanity against the backdrop of enslavement. This novel made me shout, cry, laugh, and, most of all, believe.
