This is a powerful novel that centers the beautiful,
light emanating relationship of two enslaved men and the memory (or lack thereof) of ancestors in the antebellum south. It is refreshing and important to see queer relationships lovingly centered in historical fiction.

While Isaiah and Samuel’s story is the fulcrum of the story, we get to know many other characters who live on Elizabeth (Empty) plantation - and their traumas, their intertwined and complicated relationships with each other, their hopes, their strength, their memories. Jones captures the horror and confinement of plantation life while acknowledging fleeting moments of connection and natural beauty.

The structure of the novel - alternating perspectives, the omniscient “prophets,” and the chapter titles that reference books (and characters) in the Bible worked fine for the storytelling, and to highlight the juxtaposition of white (manipulative) Christianity with ancestral spirituality.

I recently read both Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, and there are some similarities in storytelling here.

I really struggled with the prose. It is lyrical and meandering and employs so many commas. Some really beautiful, profound, poetic passages - but they are buried and lose their luminescence alongside the other distracting word salad. I think this book could have benefited from another round of editing.