In 1860, sugar cane was usually a profitable business for Louisiana plantations. However, at La Petite Cottage in St. James, this is not the case. The plantation has fallen on hard times, much to the dismay of eighty-year-old widow Madame Sylvie Bernardin Guilbert and is nearly bankrupt. Much to her disappointment, Sylvie’s son, Lucien, has gambled, spent, and drunk their fortune away.
When she was only thirteen and being raised in a French convent, Madame Sylvie married Bayard Guilbert, twenty years her senior. Sylvie, who lived at French Court for a time, was used to being pampered and having her way. When Bayard takes her to Louisiana, she thinks she has been brought to a special kind of Hell, for it is nothing like France. She hates the climate, the terrain, and the slaves that work on the plantation. Not only that, but Sylvie thinks her social standing is way above anyone else’s in St. James, and she only speaks French by choice. She is also the only heir to a vineyard in France.
On her seventieth birthday, Sylvie takes a six-year-old slave girl from her family to be her personal handmaid. She declares the girl is her birthday present and renames her Thisbe. As she grows, Thisbe learns to speak French and takes care of Sylvie’s every need. Without showing it, Thisbe watches and listens to everything that happens in the house.
Lucien hopes to save the plantation by marrying off his son, Byron, who is secretly gay, to Eugenie Duhon, the daughter of another plantation owner. He also has grand plans for his mulatto daughter, Rosalie, whom Sylvie disdains, and Laurent Tournier, the half Black, half Creole son of another plantation owner. Sylvie is paid by her best friend, Juliette Chatham, to turn her tomboy daughter, Jane, into a lady. During the midst of all this, Byron’s “friend” comes to visit, so Sylvie plans a party for him and decides she absolutely must have her portrait painted by a famous French artist.
For her novel, A Sitting in St. James, author Rita Williams-Garcia, has received starred reviews from three professional journals. The author, who is a descendant of slaves, herself, has done a meticulous job of researching and writing about plantation life in the period just before the Civil War begins. The thought she has put into interconnecting the lives of slaves and their white plantation owners is exceptional. The novel is, at times, hard to read and digest because of the harsh descriptions of slaves’ daily lives and the horrors in the way they were treated by their white owners.
The novel is completely character-driven, most of whom are completely fleshed-out. My favorites are Sylvie’s maid, Thisbe, and Jane Chatham, who comes to live with the Guilberts. Thisbe is so smart and cunning, although Sylvie could never tell, because she hides it so well. I could almost feel the hairbrush that Sylvie would beat Thisbe with when she was upset with her. Even through the beatings, Thisbe is stoic, strong, and unwavering. Jane, on the other hand, has only known love from her deceased father, and so she grows up emulating him. He has taught her to hunt, fish, and ride her wonderful horse, Virginia Wilder. Jane is literal in her thinking and brings humorous moments to an otherwise dark story.
A Sitting St. James is a treasure and a history lesson that every young adult should read. Give this rich, saga-like, page-turner to lovers of historical fiction and those who want to know more about slave life before the Civil War. I highly recommend it for public libraries and upper high school students and give it five out of five fleur de lis!
Thank you to Edelweiss and Quill Tree Books for allowing me to read and review this book.
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