The Known World by Edward P. Jones

Second reading; first read about 2006


I love this book. Even so, I can understand why many don't. It has multiple plot lines with so many characters that it is hard to remember who is who. It has no fixed time focus; a character is apt to be traced from birth unto the time of death. It meanders. It digresses. It has no clear heroes and few clear villains. It is not an easy book to read, but its rewards are many.

Jones here is addressing the historical fact that sometimes the slaves of the Old South were owned, not just by whites, but by free Negroes. How could it be, we ask from our distance in time and viewpoint, that some Negroes could reconcile themselves to owning others. Here is a possible answer, beginning with the death of the character Henry Townsend, a freed Negro who owns slaves in Virginia. The book follows his widow, his parents, his white mentor, his slaves, and many, many others, telling their stories in scattered bits and pieces, in the process explaining why so many, black and white, accepted their "known world" without question.

The book is so detailed, so filled with statistics and histories, that it seems to be based on facts, and even professional reviewers at the time of publication commented upon the prodigious research that must have been involved in the writing. However, in later interviews Jones has said that he did no research whatsoever, that every seeming fact came only from his imagination. And yet, it feels so true. This is a clear instance of what Tim O'Brien wrote about in his brilliant novel The Things They Carried: "...story truth is truer sometimes than happening truth."

Whether or not a reader loves or hates this novel depends mainly, I think, on whether or not he appreciates the narrative voice, which is in the tradition of Southern storytelling. Thus Jones sometimes sounds like Faulkner or others of the distinctly Southern writers, which also means that his prose often sounds like the King James Bible, because that is part of what contributes to the sound of language spoken in the South. Young writers are often advised to find their "voice," but real authenticity comes when the voice does not need to be found but is just part of the way the writer's mind works. That definitely seems to be the case here.

The Known World won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. It is informative; it is thought provoking; it flows with the sound of the South. I highly recommend it.