"The ninth winner of the Yale Drama Series is a searing and powerful drama of slave litigation, injustice, institutional racism and the rule of law."

I would definitely agree with that quote. Oh, this was a difficult read. It's written as a play about nineteen year old Celia who was a slave being convicted in 1855 Missouri of killing her awful, vile and wretched Massa, Mr. Robert Newsom. This book was a hard read. The white women in the story were just as evil thinking as their fathers and husbands. There's no empathy or compassion. They just look the other way and encourage the white men to "find comfort" RAPE the slave women. The brutalization of slaves; babies, children, edelrly -no one was exempt.

I read about slavery. It's my jam. It's rare to find literature that tells an honest story. Usually, the slave narrative that's written by whites gives the ideology of the betterment of the slave by slavery. That Africans were the better for being "civilized". HA!

**A slave could not claim RAPE against a slave owner. His property to do as he wished. However, rape of women was punishable by law. Just not for slaves.

***Black men who looked at white women would be castrated and or killed.

*Unedited raw review


Thank you to Yale University Press and Netgalley for the eGalley.