Wench (Perkins-Valdez)

Book Reviews 
In her debut, Perkins-Valdez eloquently plunges into a dark period of American history, chronicling the lives of four slave women—Lizzie, Reenie, Sweet and Mawu—who are their masters’ mistresses. The women meet when their owners vacation at the same summer resort in Ohio. There, they see free blacks for the first time and hear rumors of abolition, sparking their own desires to be free. For everyone but Lizzie, that is, who believes she is really in love with her master, and he with her. An extended flashback in the middle of the novel delves into Lizzie’s life and vividly explores the complicated psychological dynamic between master and slave. Jumping back to the final summer in Ohio, the women all have a decision to make—will they run? Heart-wrenching, intriguing, original and suspenseful, this novel showcases Perkins-Valdez’s ability to bring the unfortunate past to life.
Publishers Weekly

In this memorable first novel by Memphis-born Perkins-Valdez (English, Mary Washington Coll.), four friends meet each summer at a resort in Ohio but can share only snatches of time. Lizzie, Reenie, Sweet, and Mawu are black slaves brought to the resort each year by their vacationing Southern masters as personal servants and sexual companions. Their presence discomfits the Northern whites and black servants in the free state of Ohio, but the real angst lies within each woman's struggles: Mawu is determined to escape her sadistic master; Lizzie admires Mawu's independent spirit but concentrates her efforts on wheedling her master into granting freedom to her own children. VERDICT Readers of historical fiction centering on Southern women's stories like Lalita Tademy's Cane River or Lee Smith's On Agate Hill will be moved by the skillful portrayal of Lizzie's precarious situation and the tragic stories of her fellow slaves. —Laurie A. Cavanaugh, Brockton P.L., MA
Library Journal

A striking debut intimately limns a Southern slave's complicated relationship with her master. Perkins-Valdez (English/Univ. of Puget Sound) builds a convincing, nuanced portrait of Lizzie, a slave on Nathan Drayle's Tennessee plantation. Nathan took Lizzie as his mistress (if such a word can be used for the enslaved) as an adolescent; by the age of 16 she had borne him a son and daughter. He shows unguarded favor to Lizzie, moving her into the guestroom across from his wife's bedroom, teaching her to read and speak like a lady, seeming to need and care for her. In addition, her two light-skinned children are his only offspring. In the summer of 1852 Nathan takes his favored slave Philip and Lizzie to Tawawa House, an Ohio resort where Southern men bring their slave women. Ohio is a revelation to Lizzie. Free black men and women are employed at the hotel, and Lizzie sees a nearby resort catering to well-to-do African-Americans. For Lizzie and the other slaves she befriends that summer, this seems like the world turned upside down. The Southern men spend much of their time hunting, leaving Lizzie the opportunity to imagine a life away from slavery with Sweet (pregnant and doomed), Reenie (defeated by her master, who is also her white half-brother) and Mawu (redheaded, fierce and possessing voodoo charms). They meet Glory, an abolitionist Quaker who is the first white woman to speak to Lizzie as an equal. Mawu, Reenie and Philip talk of escaping, but Lizzie, fearing the slave catchers might hurt them, tells Nathan of their plan. The next summer, barely forgiven by the others for her betrayal, Lizzie begins to wonder why she loves Nathan, her protector and tormentor since childhood. This wondering is her first step toward freedom, and the potential of what the next summer may bring. Compelling and unsentimental.
Kirkus Reviews