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Truevine by Beth Macy
Mar. 19th, 2017 10:49 pmThe Blurb On The Back:
Two brothers, a kidnapping and a mother’s quest: a true story of the American south.
The year was 1899, as the old people told the story; the place a sweltering tobacco farm in Truevine, Virginia, the heart of the Jim Crow South, where everyone the Muse brothers knew was either a former slave, or a child or grandchild of slaves.
George and Willie Muse were just six and nine years’ old, but they worked the fields from dawn to dark. Until a white man offered them candy, and stole them away to become circus freaks. For the next twenty-eight years, their distraught mother struggled to get them back.
But were they really kidnapped? And how did their mother, a barely literate black woman in the segregated South, manage to bring them home? And why, after coming home, did they want to go back to the circus?
At the height of their fame, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the colour of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even ‘Ambassadors from Mars’.
The result of hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Truevine tells the extraordinary story of what really happened to the Muse brothers for the first time. It is an unforgettable tale of cruelty and exploitation, but also of loyalty, determination and love.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Although Beth Macy’s book is a frustrating biography (mainly due to the lack of primary resources on the brothers or their plight) but it’s an excellent piece of social history setting out the experiences of African Americans in the Jim Crow South, the effects of which continue to be felt today.
TRUEVINE was released in the United Kingdom on 9th March 2017. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
The year was 1899, as the old people told the story; the place a sweltering tobacco farm in Truevine, Virginia, the heart of the Jim Crow South, where everyone the Muse brothers knew was either a former slave, or a child or grandchild of slaves.
George and Willie Muse were just six and nine years’ old, but they worked the fields from dawn to dark. Until a white man offered them candy, and stole them away to become circus freaks. For the next twenty-eight years, their distraught mother struggled to get them back.
But were they really kidnapped? And how did their mother, a barely literate black woman in the segregated South, manage to bring them home? And why, after coming home, did they want to go back to the circus?
At the height of their fame, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the colour of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even ‘Ambassadors from Mars’.
The result of hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Truevine tells the extraordinary story of what really happened to the Muse brothers for the first time. It is an unforgettable tale of cruelty and exploitation, but also of loyalty, determination and love.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Although Beth Macy’s book is a frustrating biography (mainly due to the lack of primary resources on the brothers or their plight) but it’s an excellent piece of social history setting out the experiences of African Americans in the Jim Crow South, the effects of which continue to be felt today.
TRUEVINE was released in the United Kingdom on 9th March 2017. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
