It’s a touching fictionalization of the antebellum Old South, told through the eyes of both the slaves and slaveholders.

The Prophets is a really interesting novel. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation’s harmony.

But when an older man-a fellow slave-seeks to gain favor by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of sanctuary, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. As tensions build and the weight of centuries-of ancestors and future generations to come-culminate in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets masterfully reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. fiercely summons the voices of slaver and the enslaved alike to tell the story of these two men from Amos the preacher to the calculating slave-master himself to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. Robert Jones Jr. | Paperback | January 2021Ī novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.

The prophets by robert jones jr review