The Stone That the Builder Refused Book

This was the last book in Madison Smartt Bell's fictional trilogy of the lives of slaves, French colonists, French military men caught in sweep of the Haitian slave revolt. To anyone reading, please read the books in order, it is the only way to keep track of the enormous cast of characters, fictional and historical. I thought that the trilogy worked because there is no better writing subject than the events of history and those human beings who make it. Second, the writer does the reader a tremendous favor by recapping the history of each character from their appearance in book one, "All Souls Rising." Last, it is just good writing.

The whole trilogy is written around the incarceration of Toussaint Louverture in the mountains of France. Although fictional, the book was excellent in conveying colonial attitudes toward their slaves and the brutality of human trafficking. It also expands on the delicate complexion question that still vexes peoples of African descent to this day. The inclusion of the personal relationships between the slaves, the slaves and their masters and the slave military leaders among themselves and their followers is what makes the book readable.

It's great read of what men and women will do to survive. The use of sex by colonists to enhance their family fortunes once the revolution begin and the brutality sex against slave women by their masters.

There are many aspects to book that read as a military journal in the context of slave/soldiers vs. trained military might and the minds of strategists, but based on the history, it would be difficult to leave it out.

If history repeats, I can understand how the French needed a violent kicking in Indochina and in Algeria. It is the only language that they truly understood. They got no lessons from Haiti.