Property: A Novel - Hardcover

Martin, Valerie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038550408X ISBN 13: 9780385504089

Publisher: Nan A. Talese, 2003

Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of Mary Reilly, a groundbreaking novel that reexamines the questions of power and resistance, violence and sex, which inform all her work.

Set in the surreal heat of the antebellum South during a slave rebellion, PROPERTY takes the form of a dramatic monologue, bringing to the page a voice rarely heard in American fiction: the voice of a woman slave holder. Manon Gaudet is pretty and petulant, self-absorbed and bored. She has come to a sugar plantation north of New Orleans as a bride, bringing with her a prized piece of property, the young slave Sarah, only to see Sarah become her husband’s mistress and bear his child. As the whispers of a slave rebellion grow louder and more threatening, Manon speaks to us of her past and her present, her longings and dreams – an uncensored, pitch-perfect voice from the heart of moral darkness.

PROPERTY is riveting fiction, fast, richly plotted, shimmering with visual detail. It is also an invitation to re-examine the traditions of the Southern novel and the myth of the chivalrous South, and a haunting meditation on what Valerie Martin has called “the fantastic and constant perversity of the oppressor to feel victimized by the oppressed.”

About this title

From the Back Cover:

“I made the “mistake” of glancing at the opening page and was instantly hijacked into the text. This fresh, unsentimental look at what slaveowning does to (and for) one’s interior life must be a first. And the writing — so prised and clean-limbed–is a marvel"
-Toni Morrison

"A wonderful novel, vivid, revealing."
-Carol Shields

"In this stunningly powerful novel, Valerie Martin's gifts--a fearless originality and seemingly limitless perspective combined with a cool and elegant intelligenc--are all on splendid display."
-Barbara Gowdy

"[Property] is vivid and gripping. I read it in one gulp."
–Marilyn French

“[Property] is a brilliant, chillingly revelatory piece of fiction, a work of craft, economy and such good merciless observation--one of those rare, crucial novels illuminating a history we think we know and understand so that after we've read it we'll never forget its truth.”
-Ali Smith, author of Hotel World

About the Author:

VALERIE MARTIN’s works include the novels Mary Reilly, The Great Divorce, and Italian Fever. Her most recent book, Salvation, is a reconsideration of St. Francis’s life. A native of New Orleans, Martin now lives in upstate New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Nan A. Talese
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 038550408X
• ISBN 13: 9780385504089
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208