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Glory Over Everything

by Kathleen Grissom

Glory Over Everything, the second novel by Saskatchewan-raised, Virginia-based Kathleen Grissom, is the sequel to the New York Times bestseller and book-club favourite The Kitchen House. Drawing its title from the words of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, this new instalment in what looks to be an ongoing series continues the author’s exploration of slavery and race in the U.S. during the early 19th century.

glory-over-everything-9781476748443_hrSet 20 years after the events of The Kitchen House, the new book is primarily narrated by one of the earlier volume’s minor characters: James, the pale-skinned child of a Southern plantation owner and his slave. James escapes to Philadelphia, where he rises to prosperity as a white man, but constantly fears exposure of his secret identity as a mixed-race runaway slave. The consequences of discovery would be terrible, even in the free North.

When Pan, James’s black servant boy – and one of the novel’s secondary narrators – is kidnapped and sold into slavery down South, James returns to the land of his childhood at great risk. He finds Pan, and encounters a slave called Sukey (another minor character from The Kitchen House, who also becomes a subsidiary narrator in the new book), but they are all soon in mortal danger.

Glory Over Everything will probably please those who enjoyed its predecessor. Both books emphasize the importance of strong relationships for those living under the yoke, or even the threat, of slavery. And both books illustrate the dangers of arbitrarily evaluating people according to their skin colour, or that of their parents. These easily grasped lessons undergird what is essentially a formulaic, neatly written page-turner.

While The Kitchen House is predominantly plot-driven – lurching from one crisis to the next through a tale peppered with madness, murder, rape, pedophilia, incest, and a fiery grand finale – Glory Over Everything dials back the melodrama somewhat. Grissom allows the tension to build throughout her story, which includes a fraught, if clichéd, romance, though in the end she gives herself over almost entirely to the narrative lure of overt danger.

She also makes a little more space for character development this time around. James’s first-person musings allow ample access to his thoughts and motivations, though there seems to be no more to him than what is explicitly presented on the surface. His voice has a 19th-century gent’s formality, but lacks the elegance and subtlety of the era.

The voices of Grissom’s African-American characters have an air of authenticity, incorporating a distinctive cadence and vocabulary in a very readable way. Pan’s childish mishmash of speech patterns is nicely done, but the black, white, and in-between voices are part of what makes most of the characters in Glory Over Everything (including a precocious Southern belle, whose every word and gesture is pure pulp fiction) seem like mere types.

Ultimately, this sincere, entertaining novel carefully ticks the basic creative-writing boxes, but lacks the complexity and subtlety that would make it worthy of literary note.

 

Reviewer: Patricia Maunder

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Canada

DETAILS

Price: $32

Page Count: 384 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 978-1-47674844-3

Released: April

Issue Date: March 2016

Categories: Fiction: Novels