The Known World

Edward P. Jones

I am about half way into this book. The book was written by Edward P. Jones and is about the black slave owners prior to the Civil War. Some free blacks were slave owners themselves and Mr. Jones has written a novel about one of these slave owners. I almost DB'd this book because of the writing style......It is NOT easy to read. I hung in there and am glad I did. It is a very good book and raises a lot of issues regarding black/white relationships AND black/black relationships. Jones is a black man, he won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was nominated for the National Book Award for his first publication which was a book of short stories titled Lost in the City. Mr. Jones has a VERY different writing style and I could not recommend this book to everyone but for any of the Barners who are up for a challenge and want to read an interesting historical novel, it is a really good book.