Yellow Wife. Sadeqa Johnson. 2021. Simon & Schuster. 287 pages. [Source: Public Library.]
Yellow Wife is nothing short of captivating, with its look into the life of Pheby Delores Brown, a young enslaved girl on the cusp of womanhood who has been told her entire life that she’d see more than the plantation. Instead of the freedom she’d been promised, she finds herself heartbroken, sold to one of the most infamous slave jails in Virginia, and then unwilling subject of the owner’s desire.
As with any book with an antebellum setting, slavery is a central part of this story. The plot, however, steps beyond that by highlighting how the institution of slavery manifests in nearly every facet of life. The rape that a slave endured at the hands of her enslaver. The duality of Pheby’s father’s special treatment of her while she remained his property and under the thumb of his abusive wife. The colorism that granted Pheby access to affluence and an element of relative physical and economic safety. Despite Pheby being the central character, Johnson does a solid job of using peripheral characters to highlight these issues.
I expected Pheby to be more of a “tragic mulatto” character. While she certainly has her moments where she fits that descriptor, she also grows into a more cunning and strategic woman than I anticipated. It is clear that Johnson uses Pheby and others in the jail and on the plantation to demonstrate the subversive collaboration that helped Blacks weather or escape their enslavers. This isn’t, however, to say Pheby doesn’t have her own flaws. More than anything, her privilege — albeit qualified — is central to her experiences and those in proximity to her. Being the product of interracial rape afforded her the privilege of better treatment, an education, less grueling labor, and even the hope of freedom. Her obvious racial ambiguity allowed her to move in spaces and act in ways that darker skinned people would have paid severely for. Pheby is keenly aware of her privileges but doesn’t always seem to understand the limits that still exist when is enslaved.
The characters of Yellow Wife are complicated, which I reveled in. It’s easy to fall into a dichotomy of good and evil, and allow superficial characterizations to dictate characters and how readers should feel toward them. That’s not quite what Johnson does here. She develops her characters with enough nuance that the reader is allowed to sit with discomfort about how to feel toward every person in the book. Few were completely irredeemable, as much I wanted them to be. For as much as Rubin Lapier was excessively violent and controlling, he was equally tender and doting on his daughters, and at times, Pheby. It is natural to extend some grace toward Pheby. But despite her efforts to get herself and her loved ones out from under the yoke of slavery, she was often complicit, and used her own manipulation as a means to her own ends. Was she a hypocrite for playing the game — Johnson doesn’t necessarily write her in a way that makes the reader choose, but they’re certainly prompted to think.
Yellow Wife is Johnson’s fictional take on the life of Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who bore seven children of Robert Lumpkin, the man who ran an infamous Richmond slave jail. It’s clear from reading, that Johnson did her homework. The book is written in a way that feels familiar to those who have studied slavery and the antebellum South, but is also accessible to those who are less familiar. An example of this is her use of slaves being sent to plantations in the deep South as a form of punishment due to the more grueling nature of crops and more cruel nature of plantation owners. I particularly enjoyed Johnson’s afterword about her research process. While I would not describe myself as a fan of historical fiction, Yellow Wife has me reconsidering. I enjoy history and reading about it, and found myself entranced with Johnson’s approach to taking actual historical figures and reimagining their relationships, environments, and experiences.
Without question, Yellow Wife is a great read and one that I recommend without reservations. While it’s audience is adult, it would be a solid read for teens as well. While it does depict some violence and sexual situations, they’re not excessive or gratuitous. Yellow Wife is my first time reading Johnson, but I am excited to check out her other books based on the quality here.
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