THE HOUSE GIRL

The stories of two women, Josephine Bell, a house slave in Virginia in 1852, and Lina Sparrow, a 21st-century lawyer, intertwine in Conklin's fiction debut. Bahni Turpin's understated yet warm delivery almost eliminates the novel's weaknesses. The story alternates between Josephine's life on a tobacco plantation--tending to her ailing mistress, learning to read, her love of painting, her desperate need to run from the abuses suffered at the hands of "Mister"--and Lina's work on a class-action lawsuit involving reparations to the descendants of former slaves. Turpin makes the frequently mundane and clichéd situations sound meaningful. She deals with the big issues of slavery and morality with a quiet determination and a truthfulness that enhance an otherwise ambitious, if uneven, novel. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2013]