Will I love Wench?

Set just prior to the Civil War, this novel is one I’ve often recommended since first reading it years ago. The novel’s four main characters, enslaved mistresses of Southern men, are well-rendered and complex and stayed with me long after I finished the book. I was drawn by the women’s distinct personalities and how they responded to the harsh realities of their lives.

The novel also introduced me to a piece of my home state’s history: Tawawa House was a summer resort in southwestern Ohio popular among southern planters who brought their enslaved mistresses despite Ohio being a free state.… show more.

Wench is an excellent novel about four enslaved African American women who are concubines to their wealthy white plantation owners.

It chronicles their attempts to carve out a space for their happiness in the incredibly oppressive era of American slavery. This novel forces readers to contemplate how they would preserve their humanity in the absence of bodily autonomy.