by Tara Conklin
Josephine hears the night crickets singing, and the sound seems suddenly loud and raucous, as though they have just noticed her passing on the road and are singing to her for comfort, for joy.
Again she looks to the wheat, and beyond to the dark sleeping mountains, brooding against the deep blue-black of the sky, and the fields appear silver, they do, not yellow at all. It is silver, a pure shining silver that glows heavenly in the moonlight and she does not question it, she knows it is silver she sees, for she is an artist with the untethered eye of an artist and everywhere beauty lies down at her feet.
Acknowledgments
In researching the antebellum South and the Underground Railroad, a number of sources proved invaluable to me. Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America by Fergus M. Bordewich, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed, and The Known World by Edward P. Jones all helped me immeasurably to better understand the complexities of the time period and the diversity of individual experience. I also returned again and again to two websites: Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1938, contained on the Library of Congress website (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html), and a site maintained by the University of Virginia, The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War (http://valley.lib.virginia.edu). I would encourage anyone interested in the time period to make use of these valuable resources. For information on slavery reparations claims, I found the work of Deadria Farmer-Paellmann and the Restitution Study Group most helpful. It goes without saying, of course, that any errors of history, fact, or law contained in The House Girl are mine alone.
This novel would have remained in the depths of my computer files had it not been for the encouragement, friendship, and support of a great many people. Thank you to all the family and friends who provided such constructive commentary on the various drafts and voices of The House Girl and offered your support in innumerable other ways: Cheryl Contee, Elissa Steglich, Mari Hinojosa, Jay Conklin, Christina Conklin, Laura Conklin, Riisa Conklin, Drew Dresman, Kate Conklin, Nicola O’Hara Cregan, Beth McFadden, Art Chung, Jessica Silverthorne, Karen McHegg, Carol Vogt, Adrienne Spangler Connolly, Beth Shepherd, Ruth Whippman, and Shannon Huffman Polson. Thanks to Peter Mountford and his Hugo House class for helping me finish my book and to Karen Kennedy and Will Rieley for guidance on historic Virginia. I owe an enormous debt to Michelle Brower for picking me out of the slush pile, and to Katherine Nintzel and Lorissa Sengara for making the manuscript sing. Most important, to my children, Freya, Luke, and Rhys Maddock, for putting up with a mother who spends a lot of time in front of her laptop, and to my husband, Nicholas Maddock, for always saying when, never if.
About the Author
TARA CONKLIN has worked as a litigator in the New York and London offices of a major corporate law firm but now devotes her time to writing fiction. she received a BA in history from Yale University, a JD from New York University School of Law, and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Her short fiction has appeared in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology and Pangea: An Anthology of Stories from Around the Globe. Born in St. Croix, she grew up in Massachusetts and now lives with her family in Seattle, Washington.
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Credits
Cover design by Mary Schuck
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE HOUSE GIRL. Copyright © 2013 by Tara Conklin. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conklin, Tara.
The house girl : a novel / Tara Conklin. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-220739-5 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-0-06-220751-7 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-0-06-220752-4 (ebook) — ISBN 978-0-06-223987-7 (audio) 1. Fugitive slaves—Virginia—Fiction. 2. Corporate lawyers—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.O5346H68 2013
813’.6—dc23
2012027370
EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062207524
13 14 15 16 17 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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