Song Yet Sung

Starred review from September 24, 2007
Escaped slaves, free blacks, slave-catchers and plantation owners weave a tangled web of intrigue and adventure in bestselling memoirist (The Color of Water
) McBride's intricately constructed and impressive second novel, set in pre–Civil War Maryland. Liz Spocott, a beautiful young runaway slave, suffers a nasty head wound just before being nabbed by a posse of slave catchers. She falls into a coma, and, when she awakes, she can see the future—from the near-future to Martin Luther King to hip-hop—in her dreams. Liz's visions help her and her fellow slaves escape, but soon there are new dangers on her trail: Patty Cannon and her brutal gang of slave catchers, and a competing slave catcher, nicknamed “The Gimp,” who has a surprising streak of morality. Liz has some friends, including an older woman who teaches her “The Code” that guides runaways; a handsome young slave; and a wild inhabitant of the woods and swamps. Kidnappings, gunfights and chases ensue as Liz drifts in and out of her visions, which serve as a thoughtful meditation on the nature of freedom and offer sharp social commentary on contemporary America. McBride hasn't lost his touch: he nails the horrors of slavery as well as he does the power of hope and redemption.

November 1, 2007
Liz Spocott, a 19-year-old runaway slave, gets shot by her catcher but is able to kill him and escape again with 14 others through eastern Maryland's swamps. McBride ("The Color of Water") bases his story on historical events, invoking memories of abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2007
Wounded and imprisoned in the Chesapeake Bay attic of vicious slave hunter Patty Stanton, Liz Spocott, 19, foresees the future and leads a breakout of 14 slaves, who are then hounded by hunters from many sides. With a strong focus on the role of women, the author of the The Color of Water: A Black Mans Tribute to His White Mother (1996) recounts the history of slave revolts without sentimentality in a stirring novel of cruelty, betrayal, and courage, including the part played by the young slave who runs from a kind mistress and is determined to help Liz on the gospel train to freedom. More than all the escape action, what holds you is the detail of the secret codes (Double wedding rings; Five knots. Five directions) that the brave runaways pass on to show each other the way. And Lizs dreams of the future reach an unforgettable climax when she hears a leader preaching, Free at last, a song yet sung.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)

December 15, 2007
McBride's second novel, following "Miracle at St. Anna" (soon to be a Spike Lee-directed major motion picture), might better be titled "Novel Yet Edited": the review copy, at least, reads like a very rough first draft. Its settinga small Chesapeake Bay town just before the outbreak of the Civil War, a place where the reality of slavery was more ambiguous than in other parts of the countrycertainly lends it potential. The mature reader, however, learns very little new about the slave trade, the Underground Railroad, or the feelings of either the oppressed or the oppressors. Indeed, the novel largely seems written for a YA audience. The pace of the action is slowed by implausibility, repetitive and often cartoonish description, fairly obvious anachronisms, and a tremendous amount of unnecessary detail to the exclusion of the feelings of the (mostly flat) main characters. This is particularly disappointing given McBride's poignant 1996 memoir, "The Color of Water". Recommended with reservations to public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 10/1/07.]K.H. Cumiskey, North Carolina State Univ. Libs., Raleigh

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.