Ours

The ambitious and lyrical debut novel from poet Williams (Mutiny) portrays a Missouri town populated by formerly enslaved people who've escaped their bonds with help from a conjurer. The epic begins in 1834, north of St. Louis, when a free Black woman named Saint manages to purchase a plot of land in Graysville, a community planned for white people, by offering $1,500 against an asking price of $200. After the sale is completed, the white residents flee, and Saint renames the town Ours. She then frees all the enslaved people at six plantations by casting a spell on the white owners that renders them fatally ill. The town continues to grow and remains unmolested because Saint's spells, which she was never properly trained to use, have inadvertently caused a "white plague" that causes the deaths of all local white people who believe Black folks are inferior. By the late 1840s, Saint's prohibition on leaving the town causes residents to question whether they're truly free, and she faces scrutiny for her imperfect conjuring abilities. The story runs on a bit too long, but the prose is often lively (newly liberated children "moved in the heat, the fire yanking sweat from their bodies, their naked feet sliding on the grass"). Williams's accomplished narrative leaves readers with much to ponder. Agent: Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency. (Feb.)

A gorgeously written, evocative saga of Black American survival and transcendence, blending elements of fantasy, mythology, and multigenerational history. The title of this crowded, resonant, and wildly imaginative first novel is taken from the name of its setting, an all-Black community just north of St. Louis in the 1830s. It came into being because a tough-minded, inscrutably powerful woman named Saint has, through "conjuring," brought death and destruction to Southern plantations, freed their slaves, and provided a haven for them and their loved ones in "Ours"--a place that has the added convenience of being magically shrouded from outsiders. For a time, Saint's daring attempt at establishing a secure, self-sufficient community for her people in the divided heart of antebellum America seems to be working. But, however shielded its inhabitants are from slave trackers and other white predators, Ours is no unmitigated paradise, with strains soon becoming apparent among its residents. "Freedom didn't mean safety," Williams writes, "and if there's anything more shockingly unpredictable than freedom, it's love." And it's not just love between men and women but love between parents and children, and the love Saint has for those she's freed, that's tested over decades of conflict, transition, and even transformation as a result of such new members of the community as a contingent of conjurers from New Orleans led by the formidable Frances, who "[switches] between 'he' and 'she' without care." These transients add to the town's complexity and strain its cohesiveness. As in the magical realist sagas of Latin America or the grand fictions of Russian literature, time itself becomes a morphing, enigmatic character in Williams' novel as the town's insular sense of security is buffeted by the Civil War and its bruising aftermath. The reader is often challenged to keep up with worldly and otherworldly happenings. But what keeps you attentive, and the sweeping narrative anchored, are the rich characterizations and, most of all, the often-startling impact of Williams' poetically illuminated language. A multilayered, enrapturing chronicle of freedom that interrogates the nature of freedom itself. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.