The House Girl (2013) by Tara Conklin

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The House Girl (2013)

by Tara Conklin

Lyndhurst, Virginia

Virginia: 4/17

    One observation I would make about Virginia and North Carolina is this theme of enslaved people being sold from the relatively benign environments of the upper South to the harsher, crueler world of the cotton belt:  Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  The plantation economy of places like Lyndhurst, Virginia is one of perpetual, inevitable decline as the soil failed from primitive 17th and 18th century farming techniques.  Instead, you had these small plantations owned by families who owned multiple properties or leased land to others, or made their money from a profession or trade.  The slaves in these environments were an asset of the estate that could be sold off in times of economic distress to places that needed man and woman power.

   The House Girl is two inter-related stories, one about Lina, a contemporary attorney working at a white-shoe law firm, she lives in Brooklyn with her artist Father and a mother who "died" under mysterious circumstances.  She is recruited by a partner at her firm to work on an unusual case undertaken at the behest of an African-American defense contractor, a lawsuit for reparations for slavery.  She is tasked with finding the so-called, "Lead Plaintiff," a lineal descendent of an enslaved individual who can serve as the face of the lawsuit.

  This story intersects with that of Josephine, the "house girl" of the title and an 18th century slave who works as the lady-in-waiting for her dying mistress on a swampy, run-down Virginia plantation.  The House Girl is a good pick for the 1,001 Novels project on a couple of levels.  First, with over 7000 Amazon reviews it is a certified hit by the standards of literary fiction (though this isn't quite that).  Second, Lyndhurst is the farthest east location for a Virginia title save two books set near the Cumberland Gap (that's a thing, right?), and the gloomy, gothic plantation where Josephine lives is very evocative of the time and place.