The Confessions of Frannie Langton: A Novel, Sara Collins, author, Sara Collins and Roy McMillan, and narrators
This was a very well read, by both narrators, and well written book. The author knew her characters well and expressed their personalities with the tone and timbre of her voice, using accents when necessary to also identify particular characters. Her prose was lyrical and really enjoyable to read, although the subject matter was violent and heinous at times.
Frances Langton, a mulatto house slave, was educated in her master’s home by his wife Bella. She was the bastard child of a white master and his slave. Both are unknown to her. She lived on the Langton sugar plantation called Paradise, which is an oxymoron, in Jamaica, in the West Indies. It was a place of brutality and experimentation. Langton was a cruel and sadistic man who engaged in the research of race and the lack of its positive attributes in his slaves, a project he learned about and was encouraged to pursue by his mentor. In regard to this pursuit, he used his own daughter as his scribe, including her in his illegal pursuits, like grave robbing and experimentation on the slaves and their offspring in order to further his endeavor to prove that they were a largely uneducable, inferior race. He also used Frances for sex. She was resented by Bella, the reasons for which would be learned later on in the novel. Bella could be as manipulative and aggressive as her husband. They both manipulated others with their power and with threats and intimidation, often with catastrophic results.
A fire at the plantation and the death of Bella’s father voided whatever agreement had been originally arranged between them. Bella turned her husband and Frannie out. In failing health, he escaped to London with her and gifted her to a new master, George Benhem, who had been his inspiration for the research, experiments, and the book to be called “Crania”, which he hoped to publish. Both men were engaged in experimentation, and were exploiting the law. Both were writing books. Frannie soon became the secret consort of Benhem’s fickle and laudanum addicted wife, Marguerite, an unhappy woman who was bored and very disappointed with her life, although she wanted for little. Frannie was powerless, and although educated, she was naïve and victimized by many as the years passed.
For a little more than a decade, the reader follows Frannie’s development with her trials and tribulations. These revelations explore the racism and abuse that the slaves were subjected to, the lack of women’s rights, the omniscient power of the male, and the corruption in the legal system and halls of Old Bailey. Barely 21 or so, Frannie’s life was one of mistreatment and frustration.
When Frannie was accused of killing her master and mistress, she was arrested. Her lawyer asked her to write down her story and this novel is based on the result. Facts were misrepresented, lies were told, and the reader will wonder if justice was done. Although it is promoted as a book about racial injustice and murder, it is also about the lesbian affair between her master’s wife and herself. The meaning of love is explored.
The book, using historic facts, exposes the betrayals that were so prevalent at the time, the lack of trust that existed and the overtly accepted and widely tolerated racist behavior. It exposes the treatment of slaves as beasts of burden and illustrates the efforts of the early anti-slavery movement across the pond. The whites were depicted as malevolent, and the blacks, regardless of the demand, were required to be obedient. What will ultimately happen to Frances Langton? Will it be a fair verdict? Will anyone come forward to tell another story other than the one presented at the trial by some who lie with abandon, condemning her for a crime she may or may not have committed, because they believe she is a lesser human being who is of little value and therefore may be sacrificed to protect the reputation of someone of the upper class.
The book exposes injustice, cruelty and the abuse of a people based simply on skin color, but it also abuses the reader by not putting the lesbian relationship front and center in the blurbs and reviews so that the reader may decide whether or not to read the book with its descriptive sexual behavior. Perhaps as the slaves were manipulated so are the readers by a publishing industry that seeks to promote certain issues for political purposes.