Comfort: A Novel Of The Reverse Underground Railroad

Comfort: A Novel of the Reverse Underground Railroad

The year 1816 in Delaware and surrounding states was known as the year without a summer due to debris from the eruption of Mt. Tambora that tainted most of the Northern hemisphere with chill and darkness. This time of chill and darkness provides the setting for this ambitious tale of people divided by the institution of slavery, ignorance, greed and social isolation and the triumph of a few people of character over impossible odds. Historians H.A. Maxson and Claudia H. Young bring alive this little known time and place in America. Their collaboration results in a memorable tale of loyalty and betrayal, compassion and cruelty, and of dauntless courage and creativity. Comfort is a talented young seamstress who has worked to buy her freedom from slavery from her benevolent owner, an Irish immigrant and former indentured servant. Her husband Cuff is an unwise, irresponsible and weak man who sells his wife to pay his gambling debt. When Comfort falls into the hands of the reprehensible dealer of human flesh Joe Johnson, she is sold south to Virginia, to a cruel master and poor manager. Comforts stalwart friend Esther, is a slave whose skin is pale enough for her to pass as white. Esther possesses an extensive knowledge of Roots, the native art of using plants for therapeutic and not-so-therapeutic purposes. Esther pairs with Pompey, a mute freed slave who is clever and resourceful, to escape her sadistic owner, travel south to find Comfort and help her find her way back to freedom and her baby girl. Comfort tells the story of how shared morality and character can lead to unlikely partnerships in intrepid heroism. This extraordinary work by veteran authors sets a new standard for interpretation of the reverse underground railroad.ReviewMention the Underground Railroad and the first name that likely comes to mind is Harriet Tubman, one of hundreds of tireless workers who, by 1850, together helped to liberate nearly 100,000 slaves. Maxson and Youngs book describes itself as a novel of the reverse underground railroad, describing the kidnapping of free blacks and returning them to slave states for sale to slave owners. Comfort, a former slave, is living as a seamstress in Delaware in 1816, only to be sold into indentured servitude by her husband, Cuff, in order to pay his gambling debts. Forced to leave her daughter behind, Comfort harbors a fierce determination to regain the precious freedom shes lost, and to eventually make her way back to her child. Populated by tenacious and finely nuanced characters, this novel presents a vivid picture of a dark time in American history. Combining faith with extreme human courage, Maxson and Young offer the reader an extraordinary, inspirational tale. - Publishers WeeklyHA Maxson and Claudia Young have crafted a crackerjack historical drama with savagery and grace. Comfort is one of those novels that unnerves the reader, the characters are vile, beautifully rendered, and it action unfolds cinematically.Its 1816, the summer that wasnt, and Comfort, a freed slave, is sold back into slavery by her alcoholic, gambling-addicted husband, Cuff, who is as bad as his name suggests. Comforts historical premise is based in fact, and meticulously researched, but history doesnt weigh the narrative down, in fact Comforts prose is poetic, moving, even when describing the evil that people do to each other.Cuff is the low life kind of antagonist that readers love to hate. He gambles, is superstitious, takes advantage of everyone. Cuff is ostracized for selling Comfort back into slavery. Thats one of the books hooks. Comfort has already escaped slavery once by buying her freedom. Talented and capable, shes just barely free when Cuff betrays her. Cuff is in the grips of addiction when he sells his wife to the reverse underground railroad (Google it...its real), and spends the rest of the novel trying to figure out why hes the most hated man in town. Hes fogged up wi