Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned across the years to save him. After this first summons, Dana is drawn back, again and again, to the plantation to protect Rufus and ensure that he will grow to manhood and father the daughter who will become Dana's ancestor. Yet each time Dana's sojourns …
Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned across the years to save him. After this first summons, Dana is drawn back, again and again, to the plantation to protect Rufus and ensure that he will grow to manhood and father the daughter who will become Dana's ancestor. Yet each time Dana's sojourns become longer and more dangerous, until it is uncertain whether or not her life will end, long before it has even begun.
264 pages
English language
Published March 12, 1988 by Beacon Press.
The story is narrated in such a captivating way. Readers should be prepared for very serious topics that would warrant a number of content warnings, but the strong way in which the author engages with these themes makes this the very reason to read the book in the first place.
This book was an intense read, genuinely making me feel stressed sometimes. I'm mostly left speechless. I don't even know how to describe the wide array of feelings this book made me go through. A must read, in my opinion.
