Middle Passage (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

Charles Johnson’s MIDDLE PASSAGE is several books in one. To begin with, it is the superbly told story of Rutherford Calhoun, raconteur, thief, and philosopher. In 1829, twenty-two years old and newly freed from slavery, Rutherford leaves Illinois for the exotic charms of New Orleans. Within a matter of months he finds himself deeply in debt and scheduled to be married to Isadora Bailey, a kind-hearted, well-educated, reform-minded, and very proper girl from a free Negro family in Boston. To escape this fate (he likes Isadora but has no desire to be married or to be reformed),...

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