The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

 

Most people have heard of Harper's Ferry and the man, John Brown, who captured it believing that it would force the hand of the government to free the slaves.  Many regard it as the opening salvo of the Civil War although formal declarations didn't happen.  But few know John Brown, an evangelist with twenty-two children, as Henry Shackleford does.

Henry is a young African American boy.  He is raised in a saloon by his father, a drunkard who clears the tables.  Henry does the same, plus cutting hair and singing.  The two eke out a living but his father knows hard times are coming.  He convinces Henry to dress as a girl thinking he would be safer and after his father is killed, Henry leaves, seeking his way in life.

He ends up with John Brown's ragtag army out in Kansas.  John Brown is determined to free the slaves and improve the lot of the Indians he feels kinship with.  Brown is a master strategist and can inspire men, but he never had more than a handful of soldiers, many his own sons.  He renames Henry Onion and Onion he is.  This is the story of the four years leading up to Harper's Ferry.  Onion is sometimes with Brown and sometimes on his own but his path always leads back to Brown.  With him he meets famous African Americans such as Harriet Tubman and Fredrick Douglas.  The Northern abolitionists promise Brown supplies and men but their words are not good.  Brown wants to take Harper's Ferry, believing a vast army of slaves will join him there and that they can retreat to the mountains for a sustained battle.  

James McBride is a former journalist for such publications as the Washington Post and People Magazine.  He moved into full time writing and his books have been best sellers.  This novel won the National Book Award in 2013.  I've heard about it for years and finally found time to read it and found it amazing.  Onion is the narrator and his life in disguise as a girl exemplifies the disguises that those in slavery had to live under to survive.  I always thought The Good Lord Bird was a person but it is indeed a bird with distinctive feathers that was considered lucky.  Both Brown and Onion had a feather from a good lord bird and when Onion gives Brown his feather as he is leaving Harper's Ferry, it symbolizes that Brown's good luck has left and he will not survive his dream.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.