Twelve Years a Slave Annotated

Incredible story. I read this after seeing the movie, and I'm surprised to see that nearly all of the same elements are there, with perhaps a few minor tweaks combining some of Solomon's overseers/owners into fewer personalities, more suitable for film. About the only noticeable scene that's missing from the movie is Solomon's stopover in Washington during the return trip to sue Burch -- not the most painful of Solomon's experiences, but quite possibly the most frustrating.

As for the book itself, Solomon's tale is highly readable still today. The narrative is fast paced, yet provides sufficient detail to give a good sense of the people who made up a significant part of Solomon's life for that rather long interstice of enslavement. I was also intrigued at Solomon's interjections and descriptions of the institution of slavery, which he described as a complex system full of masters and mistresses who are variously benevolent and baneful, pious and puerile, magnanimous and megalomaniacal. Solomon's commentary on the system is as nuanced as it is unforgiving, being critical without becoming too -- tract-y, for lack of a better word. At the end he even acknowledges that if there is any fault of his story, it is that he highlighted "too prominently the bright side of the picture," a sentiment which it would be much too understated to call unexpected at best.

While not always a happy story, this is definitely a great one.