Describing the life of slaves in the antebellum U.S. is a monumental task. Bryan Prince, a Canadian descendant of slaves, tackles the subject by telling the true story of a single family: the Weemses of Montgomery County, Maryland. This personal approach allows Prince to draw a vivid and intimate portrait of love amidst constant uncertainty.

The story is filled with both tragedy and joy. Patriarch John, already a free man, is confronted with the worst situation possible when the owner of his wife and children dies and they are sold to various buyers. Desperate to save them, John embarks on a fundraising mission across the U.S. and all the way to England.

Because of the size of the Weems clan – 10 children in total – we learn about some of the different avenues to freedom: individual slaves could be bought through fundraising efforts (although abolitionists did not like the fact that the chief benefactor was the slave owner himself), while others escaped on the Underground Railroad, where the amount of money and organization involved was truly staggering.

Prince approaches his subject by telling not only the story of each family member’s individual path to freedom, but also the story of many others peripherally involved with their struggle. Keeping the various figures in the book straight becomes tedious after a while.

The narrative is fast-paced and well written, but readers seeking a dispassionate study will be disappointed. There is no analysis of slavery’s historical and economic context; instead, the author expounds on  the immorality of those who participated in the practice. This may be self-evident from a 21st-century perspective, but it does nothing to help a reader understand how and why slavery persisted in the U.S. for so long.

A Shadow on the Household is an interesting story of a dedicated, loving family, but as a history of a time and place, it suffers from an excess of anachronistic sentiments. Prince could have better illustrated both the horrors of slavery and joys of freedom by allowing the Weems family’s experience to speak for itself.