Property

Valerie Martin'sPropertydelivers an eerily mesmerizing inquiry into slavery's venomous effects on the owner and the owned. The year is 1828, the setting a Louisiana sugar plantation where Manon Gaudet, pretty, bitterly intelligent, and monstrously self-absorbed, seethes under the dominion of her boorish husband. In particular his relationship with her slave Sarah, who is both his victim and his mistress. Exploring the permutations of Manon's own obsession with Sarah against the backdrop of an impending slave rebellion,Propertyunfolds with the speed and menace of heat lightning, casting a startling light from the past upon the assumptions we still make about the powerful and powerful.

 Valerie Martin is the author of two collections of short fiction and six novels, including <b>Italian Fever</b>, <b>The Great Divorce</b>, and <b>Mary Reilly</b>. Her most recent book is a nonfiction work on St. Francis of Assisi: <b>Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. Francis</b>. She resides in upstate New York.