The indications of what's to come mean a sense of doom hang over this beautifully crafted tale, people with luminous characters. rich in character and plot' Guardian 'A masterpiece' Time Magazine `Jones immerses us in a world of slaves and slave owners with unerring mastery' Geoff Dyer, Telegraph Books of the Year An engrossing epic tale.

cumulative effect devastates' Daily Telegraph 'A moral epic, skilfully and sensitively constructed' Sunday Times 'A powerful experience. Amistad is sending the novel off with a bang-a 10-city author tour, a 20-city national radio campaign-and it should attract considerable review attention.A very moving epic' Andrea Levy, author of Small Island 'Majestic. Lost in the City was set in Washington, D.C., in the 1960s and '70s. (Sept.)įorecast: This is a new tack for Jones, whose collection Jones's prose can be rather static and his phrasings ponderous, but his narrative achieves crushing momentum through sheer accumulation of detail, unusual historical insight and generous character writing. Henry's wife, Caldonia, is not as disciplined as her husband, and when he dies, his worst fears are realized: the plantation falls into chaos. Though he is a cruel master to his slaves, Robbins is desperately in love with a black woman and feels as much fondness for Henry as for his own children Henry, meanwhile, reads Milton, but beats his slaves as readily as Robbins does. His richest characterizations-of Robbins and Henry-are particularly revealing. Jones's thorough knowledge of the legal and social intricacies of slaveholding allows him to paint a complex, often startling picture of life in the region.

Even after Henry's parents purchase the family's freedom, Henry retains his allegiance to Robbins, who patronizes him when he sets up shop as a shoemaker and helps him buy his first slaves and his plantation.

As a slave in his youth, Henry makes himself indispensable to his master, William Robbins. His fictional examination of this unusual phenomenon starts with the dying 31-year-old Henry Townsend, a former slave-now master of 33 slaves of his own and more than 50 acres of land in Manchester County, Va.-worried about the fate of his holdings upon his early death. In a crabbed, powerful follow-up to his National Book Award–nominated short story collection ( Lost in the City), Jones explores an oft-neglected chapter of American history, the world of blacks who owned blacks in the antebellum South.

The known world novel