The Valley Nearby Book

An interesting novel based on the life of Robert Smalls. Told from the African American slave perspective, the story is set in the low country of South Carolina, centered around Beaufort and the Sea Islands. The author weaves historical perspective of slavery and the Civil War in this region around an interesting narrative of a slave who yearns to be free and steals a Confederate ship and surrenders it to the Union. He then becomes a ship's captain for the Union until the end of the war. The author also gives a good perspective of the vision of reconstruction until the assassination of Lincoln, when everything turns around in favor of the Southern white planter and against the freed blacks, thus setting the stage for years of poverty, injustice, and racism.