A novella told mostly in the first person perspectives of an enslaved African woman, her daughter, a trader from the north, his wife, a Native American, and an addled child that escapes the wreck of a slave ship. Yes, it’s confusing at first because Morrison doesn’t explain who’s doing the talking, but her descriptions of the handful of lives involved feels more authentic and less contrived and romanticized than any accounting of early colonizer life I’ve ever come across. June 2009.