Passages

I wasn't universally enamored of Jones' writing style, especially the kind of magical realism passages, but often he could really turn a phrase and capture a mood precisely, especially when he was trying to relate the grace, and poetic, if sad, resignation that had become a part of slave mentality. I liked these a lot:

...Mary, hearing Ophelia sing, had decided right then that she didn't want heaven if it came without Ophelia. Mary asked Ophelia about coming with her and eating peaches and cream in the sunlight until Judgment Day and Ophelia shrugged her shoulders and said, "That sounds fine. I ain't got nothin better to do right at the moment. Ain't got nothin' to do till evenin time anyway."

"So when I say he (Augustus) was a handsome man, he was indeed. Henry was, too, but he never got old enough to lose that boyish facade colored men have before they settle into being handsome and unafraid, before they learn that death is as near as a shadow and go about living their lives accordingly. When they learn that they become even more beautiful than even God could imagine."

And Alice's song that always ended "He told me this, he told me that." And there was another song: "I'm over here, I'm over there, I ain't nowhere." Both of these seemed to perfectly express the randomness of a slave's life and the lack of personal identity and permanence in a place and a social network. You just always had to be prepared for whatever, and whatever was usually pain.