Freeman, the new novel by Leonard Pitts, Jr., takes place in the
first few months following the Confederate surrender and the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Upon learning of Lee's surrender, Sam--a runaway slave who once worked
for the Union Army--decides to leave his safe haven in Philadelphia and
set out on foot to return to the war-torn South. What compels him on
this almost-suicidal course is the desire to find his wife, the mother
of his only child, whom he and their son left behind 15 years earlier on
the Mississippi farm to which they all "belonged."
At the same time, Sam's wife, Tilda, is being forced to walk at gunpoint
with her owner and two of his other slaves from the charred remains of
his Mississippi farm into Arkansas, in search of an undefined place that
would still respect his entitlements as slaveowner and Confederate
officer.
The book's third main character, Prudence, is a fearless, headstrong
white woman of means who leaves her Boston home for Buford, Mississippi,
to start a school for the former bondsmen, and thus honor her father's
dying wish.
At bottom, Freeman is a love story--sweeping, generous, brutal,
compassionate, patient--about the feelings people were determined to
honor, despite the enormous constraints of the times. It is this aspect
of the book that should ensure it a strong, vocal, core audience of
African-American women, who will help propel its likely critical acclaim
to a wider audience. At the same time, this book addresses several
themes that are still hotly debated today, some 145 years after the
official end of the Civil War. Like Cold Mountain, Freeman
illuminates the times and places it describes from a fresh perspective,
with stunning results. It has the potential to become a classic addition
to the literature dealing with this period. Few other novels so
powerfully capture the pathos and possibility of the era particularly as
it reflects the ordeal of the black slaves grappling with the
promise--and the terror--of their new status as free men and women.
