Wench (P.S.)

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Tawawa House in many respects is like any other American resort before the Civil War. Situated in Ohio, this idyllic retreat is particularly nice in the summer when the Southern humidity is too much to bear. The main building, with its luxurious finishes, is loftier than the white cottages that flank it,but then again, the smaller structures are better positioned to catch any breeze that may come off the pond. And they provide more privacy, which best suits the needs of the Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their black, enslaved mistresses. It's their open secret. Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at Tawawa House. They have become friends over the years as they reunite and share developments in their own lives and on their respective plantations. They don't bother too much with questions of freedom, though the resort is situated in free territory-but when truth-telling Mawu comes to the resort and starts talking of running away, things change.

• ISBN10: 006170654X
• ISBN13: 9780061706547
• Publish Date: 5 January 2010
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

Wench follows four slave women and their masters as they vacation at the Tawawa House, a resort in Ohio in the 1850s in which white men from the south would vacation with their slave mistresses. Although, due to Ohio being a "free state" the northerners frowned upon such behaviors eventually closing the retreat. Wench is the story of those four summers that the Tawawa House was open.

Lizzie, our lead protagonist visits the camp with her master Drayle and looks at this time as a mini-vacation to spend with her friends, Sweet, Reenie and Mawu. Wench was an interesting concept but went absolutely nowhere. The bases of the plot was the girls doing some sort of chore, followed by anal sex and maybe popping out a baby or two. There were several opportunities to "take it somewhere" such as a difficult childbirth, attempted escapes or a vague description of life in the slave quarters. Unfortunately each opportunity ended with master and slave heading back to the cabin for anal sex.

So much potential but such a disappointment. I think part of the problem was that a plethora of historical fiction novels has been written on the topic of slavery, (Gone with the Wind, Cane River, Uncle Tom's Cabin) and Wench brought nothing new to stand out from the rest of the crowd and could easily be picked last for "Red Rover".