In Berry’s first novel, Redemption Song
, a contemporary love story unfolds as a pair of young strangers share reading the only extant copy of a slave narrative, the work of a woman who experienced deep love for a fellow slave and savage treatment from her owner. “When I named the evil slave owner,” Berry explains in this memoir, referring to her novel, “I gave him the name of the man who owned the [Delaware] plantation that my family had lived on.” Berry’s mother had told her that “Granddaddy said John Hunn was a good man,” but Berry met such reports with utter disbelief. Her memoir is an act of contrition toward “the man whose name I tried to tarnish” as well as a journey of self-discovery and self-education as she uncovers the historical Hunn—indeed, “a good man.... a Quaker who risked life and limb in the fight for abolition” and “the southernmost conductor of the Underground Railroad.” Berry weaves abolitionist history with autobiography (her single mother’s struggle to raise a family of seven children; her own finding “a way out of poverty through education”). Berry’s competently researched book, with its sprinklings of history, folklore and scripture along with a motivational thrust (“We are all born with a purpose, a journey that must be completed”), provide an accessible, readable introduction for others “saddened... that none of this history had been made part of my education.” (Jan.)
