A Respectable Trade

Rating:
Summary: A tour de force about the horrors of slavery
Review: A Respectable Trade is a book that will definetly shock you. It is the story of two people - Yoruban seer and healer Mehuru, and the repressed English lady Francis Scott. In the beginning of the novel, Francis is thirty four, and becoming desperate for a husband. When she gets an offer from the social climbing merchant Josiah Cole, she quickly accepts. She finds out early in her marriage that Josiah has made most of his money from the "respectable" business of slave trading. At this same point, Mehuru has been captured, thrown on a boat bound for England... and the household of Josiah and Francis. This book is interesting more for its historical deatils and insight than for its (admittedly rather silly) romance. But the history is enough to make it an extremely thought provoking and intelligent book.

Rating:
Summary: An honest, unflinching historical novel
Review: This book was very well written, but also very stark and unflinching in its portrayal of the slave trade in the city of Bristol at the end of the eighteenth century. It was not a nice time, and the city was neither genteel nor polite, no matter how much it pretended to be. The book captured this roughness, as well as the political maneuverings of the very rich, who managed to use everyone who was not included in their select circle for their own personal gain.

Enter into this scene one impoverished lady with only her good name, an ambitious merchant and his sister, and a highly educated slave, and you get a story filled with complicated loyalties and difficult questions. What impressed me about this book is that it offered no trite answers to these questions.

Rating:
Summary: good historical fiction
Review: This well written historical novel gives a glimpse into a less well known aspect of slavery namely, the slave trade in England. The depictions of life in 18th C Bristol are believable. The follies of the newly rich are applicable to all times and were amusing. The romance between the Yoruban slave and the mistress of the house is a bit overdone but a useful vehicle for the plot. What kept this from being really excellent was the somewhat superficial characterizations.