If one of the responsibilities of the artist is to hold up a mirror to the scourge of history, then Robert Morgan has written a successful 10th novel. If another responsibility is to retell history in ways that are dynamic and inspiring, then perhaps the success of "Chasing the North Star" is more in question.
This novel tells the story of runaway slave Jonah Williams, who flees a South Carolina plantation with little more than his will and the North Star to guide him. In the mountains of North Carolina, he meets Angel, a vivacious (and bodacious) young woman whose instinct to join Jonah on the road to freedom will prove his salvation on several occasions. Together and apart, the two navigate the perils of the runaway while they encounter the kindness of some, but the meanness of many others.
Morgan's prose is at times elegant and lovely. Consider the powerful opening sentence: "He was called Jonah because he was born during a terrible storm and his mama said soon as she let go of him and put him ashore in this world of folly and time the thunder quieted and the wind laid." It's lyrical and laconic, and even suggestive of the storm soon to envelop Jonah's life. And there are countless such sentences.
But the prose can also sometimes be clumsy and overwritten, such as when Angel's body — under the touch of her master — is described as "some precious thing," "a mystery he wanted to figure out," "like he was spreading oil or butter on fine leather," and "like he was polishing a fine saddle," all within the span of two short paragraphs. Or when the bark of a tree is described successively as looking like masonry on one page, and like the hide of an animal on the next.
What is unequivocal about this novel is the verve of Morgan's scenic imagination. Whether he's writing about a master whipping his slave or Jonah and Angel making love for the first time or, perhaps the novel's most stunning scene, Jonah riding an unmoored shack down a flooded river plain, the writing is visual and powerful and even breathtaking at times.
Perhaps the novel's best attribute is also its subtlest. Throughout these pages Morgan takes measured and artful steps to remind the reader that history, whether large or small, is made up entirely of stories. And so, too, is life.
The lives he describes here, of Jonah and of Angel, of their will and determination, are beautiful lives. And they are hopeful lives, too. But more than anything, they are reminders of the bleakness of our history, and that goodness might prevail. That's a lesson worth repeating.
Peter Geye is the author of "Wintering," to be published in June. He lives in Minneapolis.
