The barbarity of slavery bared

An epic story of Jewish involvement in human bondage

March 13, 2011|Roberta Silman, Globe Correspondent

Alan Cheuse, the regular and generous-spirited book reviewer on NPR, is also a teacher, editor, and writer. In his latest work of fiction, “Song of Slaves in the Desert,’’ Cheuse has written an ambitious story about slavery with an interesting twist. Although only a small percentage of plantation owners in the South were Jewish, Cheuse has conjured one of those families — the fictional Pereiras, who came from Spain by way of the Antilles to Charleston, S.C. In this sweeping epic, which takes place in the decade before the Civil War, Cheuse intersperses his Charleston tale with the voices of the Africans who left Timbuktu and with each generation became more and more imprisoned in the bondage known as slavery.

At its most straightforward, this is the story of Nathaniel Pereira, a naive young man sent by his father from New York to “research’’ life at the rice plantation owned by his Uncle Abraham in Charleston with the goal, perhaps, of having the northern Pereiras invest in the venture. What Nate, who is engaged to a woman in New York, finds and how he copes with his physical attraction for Liza, the favored house slave, is the major narrative thread of this novel. With a large cast of characters, some predictable, some not, Cheuse raises interesting questions about Jewishness and slavery and family and loyalty, and the ability of some men to justify not only their greed but also their baser instincts. Among the more memorable are: Abraham, a seemingly upright man; his wife, Rebecca, who is determined to teach her slaves to read but has not considered the repercussions; their son, Jonathan, whose lust for power and sex leads him to acts of extreme brutality; Isaac, the forbearing and beloved brother figure; Dou, the voice of weariness and resignation and wisdom; and finally Liza, the linchpin of this disturbing book who slithers in and out of the house, in and out of Nate’s mind, and slowly reveals her fierce ability to survive.

The language in the Charleston tale is often spare and beautiful. Here are Liza and Nate at a crossroads:

“ ‘You say you love me . . . Don’t you know that is the cruelest most awful thing you can to tell a woman like me? . . . And do you know why it is so cruel?’

“ ‘No,’ I said in a whisper near her ear. ‘Tell me.’

“ ‘Because I am not free to refuse you. And I am not free to accept you, either. I am just a lonely piece of chattel, do you understand? A Jew-slave, as they call us in town . . .’

“ ‘You hate all these good people. Why?’ [I said.]

“ ‘It was terrible of them to be good to us. Before I learned to read, before I read all those things I read, I didn’t know how much I was hurting.’ ’’