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| cover image: www.simonandschuster.ca |
Picture it. New York City. 1776. The Colonies are in the early throes of the Revolution.
Thirteen-year-old Isabel and her five-year-old sister Ruth are taken from their late owner's farm outside Newport, Rhode Island and sold to Elihu and Anne Lockton, visiting from New York City. The Locktons, with Isabel and Ruth in tow, arrive to a New York City that's currently under the control of the Patriot army and General George Washington. At this point, the tension in the novel is already quite palatable. As soon as the Locktons, Isabel, and Ruth set foot in New York City, the stakes go up a few notches in a book with already incredibly high stakes. Anne Lockton engages in an extremely public battle of wills with Mr. Bellingham, the harbormaster. You see, the Locktons are staunch Loyalists, while Bellingham is a fierce Patriot, which echo the sharp divisions of New York City between Patriots and Loyalists.
Almost from the first moment Isabel arrives in New York, she finds herself in a tug-of-war between needing to stay on her owners' good side and an offer made by Curzon, a slave owned by Bellingham. If Isabel spies on her Loyalist master, Curzon promises the Patriots will give Isabel and Ruth their freedom. Therein lies the central conflict of the novel: how far will Isabel go to gain freedom for herself and Ruth?
In Chains, Anderson presents her finest writing since Speak exploded onto the scene in 1999. Every decision Isabel makes is fraught with dire consequences, creating layer upon layer of complexity. Curzon neatly pinpoints the source of Isabel's initial hesitation in spying on the Locktons: she is dependent on them for everything -- food, shelter, clothes. They literally hold Isabel's life in their hands. That the Locktons view Isabel as something less than human is presented, ironically, as an advantage. Curzon states, "You are a small black girl... You are a slave, not a person. They'll say things in front of you they won't say in front of white servants... It happens all the time to me" (Anderson 41). Isabel's position as a slave in the Lockton household puts her in a position to hear an all sorts of Loyalist plots, as Elihu and his cronies freely speak of a plot to assassinate George Washington while Isabel serves them food and wine.
Anderson presents a view of the American Revolution in all its shades of grey. Nothing -- and I do mean absolutely nothing -- in this book exists as a simple binary of good versus evil. As a villain, Anne Lockton is as chilling in her utter ruthlessness as they come. Becky, the Locktons' paid servant, warns Isabel of Anne's temper through an anecdote about a former slave who displeased Anne. Anne beat the previous slave so badly with a fireplace poker, she broke the girl's arm and it never healed properly, so Anne sold her. But even Anne is caught in a prison created by the social structure that gave women few rights of their own. Early in the novel, Isabel notices an old bruise around Anne's wrist, a quick nod to the abuse Anne suffers at the hands of her husband, something Anderson explores a bit more later in the novel. Isabel first tries to persuade the Patriot Army to purchase her away from the Locktons, if only to escape from Anne Lockton's cruelty. When that fails, she tries to give information about the movements of the Patriot Army to the British, in the hopes that they will free her, as they've offered to other slaves. Isabel's hopes are dashed to bits when the officer to whom she speaks informs her the British would only free her if she had been the slave of a rebel Patriot, and since she's the property of a Loyalist, they cannot free her. There are Patriots who experience no cognitive dissonance at the idea of fighting for their freedom, while keeping other human beings enslaved. There are also Loyalists, like Elihu Lockton's aunt, Lady Seymour, who are clearly uncomfortable with slavery, but for reasons known only to them, don't fight harder to free the slaves they can help. People often switch sides from Patriot to Loyalist and back, depending on the fortunes of each side. Or, like the Locktons, they act like Patriots in public while New York is occupied by the Patriots, but are dyed in the wool Loyalists behind closed doors. All of these layers of moral complexity serve to create vivid, three-dimensional characters that a reader can easily imagine.
Anderson's language in Chains is vividly descriptive. She -- in Isabel's voice -- describes New York as a "ball tossed between Loyalists and Patriots" (Anderson 39-40). Even her description of New York in the summer is enough to make a reader wrinkle their nose in sympathy when Isabel says it "smelled like a garbage pit mixed with a fresh mountain of manure" (Anderson 125). The dialog between Isabel and Curzon crackles as they butt heads, both equally stubborn and convinced what each is doing is the right course of action.
The text for the chapter headings and epigrams that begin each chapter is reminiscent of the printing style of the late eighteenth century. Even the touch of using Roman numerals (which might make a reader want to brush up on those elementary math lessons) hearkens back to a more distant era. It's the epigrams that really give the book the feel of the eighteenth century. Anderson quotes sources various sources, like Abigail Adams' famous "Remember the ladies" letter to John Adams, letters from various Patriot and British army officers, and Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense. The epigrams cleverly offer a bit of a preview of the content of the following chapter.
The cover illustration perfectly encapsulates the theme of the novel. A silhouette of Isabel, with her raised hands seemingly chained by a strip of parchment or paper that has the title on it. On each side of the "chain" are birds that represent both the Colonies and Great Britain. Isabel rather vividly describes herself as being "chained between two nations" (Anderson 182).
Any history class that's studying the American Revolution should read this book. Or even excerpts. It gives such a unique point a view that usually isn't seen in tales of the Revolutionary War. And, as noted earlier, it avoids separating characters into neat "good" or "evil" boxes. The book is so good, that adult readers would enjoy it. I've even recommended it to my history-loving dad.
Chains is part of Anderson's Seeds of America trilogy, which includes Forge and Ashes. Fans of the trilogy have been waiting for years for Ashes. It finally (!) has an expected publication date: October 4, 2016.
Chains was a finalist for the National Book Awards in 2008, and the winner of the Scott O'Dell award for historical fiction in 2009.
In April 2014, Anderson participated in a Reddit AMA. In it she discusses Speak, as well as other books, and mentions the illness that prevented her from writing for a couple of years (hence the delay for Ashes). Especially funny is her explanation of why she refers to her historical novels as "historical thrillers" not "historical fiction" (Too many bad memories of Johnny Tremaine.) There's another Reddit AMA where Speak features heavily, but it's also a wonderful conversation with Anderson. Read them both. She's an engaging conversationalist. :) And she loves librarians.
Works Cited
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Chains. New York, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2008. Print.
