Soulcatcher and other stories

by Charles Richard Johnson

"Nothing has had as profound an effect on American life as slavery. For blacks and whites alike, the experience has left us with a conflicted and contradictory history. Now, in fictional form, National Book Award-winning author Charles Johnson presents twelve stories illuminating slavery's effects and experiences. From Martha Washington's management of her slaves following the death of her husband to a boy chained in the bowels of a ship laden with human cargo plying the infamous passage from Africa to the South; from a lynching in Indiana to a hunter of escaped slaves searching the Boston market for his quarry; from a Quaker meeting exploring resettlement in Africa to the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation - the voices, terrors, and savagery of slavery come unforgettably to life. These tales transcend history even as they present it, and retell the tragic proportions of a period with astounding realism, power, and emotion."--BOOK JACKET.