The Icon Black Lives Matter Series; The Confessions of Nat Turner

Much has been made of this book, with criticism ranging from the extreme charge of racism to the milder implication that Styron, as a white man, could not capture Nat Turner's "blackness" the way a black writer could have. I don't wish to address this book within the context of these controversies.......more

By sword and ax and gun you run a swath through this county that will be long remembered. You did, as you say, come damn near to taking your army into this town. And in addition, as I think I told you before, you scared the entire South into a condition that may be described as well-nigh shitless. N......more

This was a difficult read, as any book about the atrocities of slavery will be. What further complicates the reading of this novel is the fact of its author's whiteness, as well as the (non) issue of the artistic license that Styron took in his attempt to grapple with a subject that had tormented hi......more

In 1831 Nat Turner led the largest slave uprising in American history, murdering 60 white men, women and children with a mob of slaves in Virginia. Some dude went and interviewed him in prison, and this claims to be his first-person account of his life and revolt. The motives of the dude - a white sl......more

I'm tempted to give this 1 star, but it does hold some historical perspectives that are worth reading. Just be aware that Styron twisted some facets of history around & subscribed unsupportable motivations to Turner, a religious fanatic & a lunatic, by his own words to Thomas Ruffin Gray. Gray was t......more