Chasing the North Star

February 8, 2016
Morgan’s (Gap Creek) latest is a grittily entertaining, smartly paced narrative about a fugitive slave. It’s 1851, and 18-year-old house servant Jonah Williams decides to run away from the Williams corn plantation located near Greenville, S.C. Having learned to read and write, Jonah is severely whipped by his master for reading books from the plantation library. From the newspapers, he discovers that freedom lies to the north, and he escapes on foot, guided by the North Star on his eventful journey. He survives by his wits until he arrives at a slaves’ mountaintop “jubilee,” where he meets the zaftig Angel Thomas. After becoming Jonah’s new lover, she wants to leave her master and join his flight despite his reluctance to accept a partner. The spirited interplay between the earthy Angel and cerebral Jonah provides much of the comic relief from the often violent, bleak conditions they encounter. Their harrowing ordeal while forced to work at a high-end brothel in Roanoke, Va., almost derails their mission. Despite being separated several times, Jonah always ends up back in the company of Angel as they push on to New York and Canada. He uses forged papers and an assumed name to live as a free man, while Angel realizes she has fallen in love with him. Morgan is first-rate storyteller; he plots his novel extremely well, and readers will find this journey captivating.

February 1, 2016
In this road novel set in the 19th century, a young black slave escapes a plantation to seek freedom in the North. Poet, novelist, and historian Morgan has staked out a rich piece of literary territory for himself. His splendid books (The Road from Gap Creek, 2013, etc.) have portrayed a frontier Appalachian world--especially North Carolina--of hardship and perseverance. This novel explores a subject that has been just on the edges of his previous books--the African-American experience. Jonah Williams is an 18-year-old South Carolina slave who becomes a runaway in the spring of 1851. After being falsely accused of stealing a book (he taught himself to read) and viciously lashed for his offense, Jonah decides to run. With only a knife and a few coins he took from his Mama's jar, and without any shoes, he heads into a mountainous wilderness filled with "outlaws and squatters and trash." Using the North Star as his beacon, he heads North, where he had read Negroes were free. The novel starts deceptively slowly, with what appears to be a fairly simple narrative told in simple prose, but it's much more. We closely follow Jonah as he confronts a world of copperheads, poison oak, hornets' nests, and massive mountains to climb. He must learn, adapt, be resourceful and wary to survive: "A slave was never supposed to hurry, or hold his head too high." Morgan beautifully conveys Jonah's wistful regrets for leaving and then his constant, palpable fears. He relies on his wiles to escape from men anxious to capture him, and there are many close calls--as well as severe violence. Along the way Jonah meets a slave girl, Angel, who then runs after him, hoping she'll find that freedom train to the North too. A powerful, gripping, and unrelenting tale of wilderness survival under the most dire of circumstances in the pursuit of freedom: another outstanding work of historical fiction from Morgan.

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April 15, 2016

In 1850, Jonah Williams escapes from a South Carolina mansion after being whipped for the offense of being literate. Sought by bounty hunters, Jonah crosses paths with another slave, Angel, and though he'd like to abandon her, she won't let him go. She sees him as her ticket to freedom, but she also loves Jonah and considers herself his perfect counterbalance: Jonah is educated but ignorant of life outside of books, while Angel is worldly wise and free. And she maintains her independence--which is one of the wonderful things about this story--no matter the indignities she endures, including prostitution, poverty, and rape. Adventures happen. The couple meet intriguing people. And time after time, Jonah walks away from Angel only to find, further down the road, that there she is again. Gradually, love takes shape. VERDICT Morgan (Gap Creek) has mined U.S. history to tell a picaresque story that succeeds at being both poetic and action filled.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2016

Jonah becomes a runaway slave on his 18th birthday after his master whips him for supposedly stealing a book. Jonah, who secretly knows how to read, has learned about freedom in the North. His journey from a plantation in South Carolina to freedom in upstate New York is harrowing to put it mildly. In moments of true suspense, this historical novel becomes a page-turner. Along the way, Jonah meets Angel, another runaway slave, and tries repeatedly to leave her behind. Aptly named, this character is an angel of sorts for him, though Jonah also finds her to be a hindrance. Angel's escape highlights a woman's perspective and reveals another layer of discrimination. The two characters provide first-person accounts at different points, and the author's decision to weave these two viewpoints offers readers a full sense of the characters. Young adults will identify with Jonah as he questions this racist system, all the while trying to find some hope in humanity. His odyssey moves him closer to freedom, but he also discovers his life's meaning and a passion for life. VERDICT A much-needed addition to high school libraries.-April Sanders, Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2016
Eighteen-year-old Jonah, a slave on a South Carolina plantation, learned to read by fetching things for the tutor of the Williams children and sitting in on their lessons. But when Mr. Williams suspects him of stealing books and gives him a beating, Jonah decides to run away to Canada. As he makes his way north, he thinks through every step he needs to take to survive and avoid being caught. Along the way, he acquires a follower, Angel, who sees him as her only chance for freedom. Jonah considers her a complication and tries to leave her behind, but she keeps turning up. There is a mythic quality to Jonah's journey as he overcomes danger and hardship with a combination of intelligence, persistence, and luck. Angel's first-person narrative is woven throughout Jonah's story, sometimes relating the same events from a different point of view. The last few chapters, when the love story between Angel and Jonah comes to the fore, seem anticlimactic, but for most of the novel, Morgan, whose Gap Creek (1999) was an Oprah's Book Club selection, presents the reader with a convincing and richly imagined experience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)