Ta-Nehisi Coates has written a beautiful debut novel, conveying the emotional toll and outrageous wrongs suffered by people who were forced into slavery in the American South. The story emphasises the importance of memory. Without memory, there is no life story, no collective knowledge, no culture. For a group of people who have no rights at all, who can be sold away from their family members and traditions, memory is tantamount to a sense of identity.

In this novel, Coates refers to slaves as The Tasked, while the plantation owners are Quality. The main character is Hiram Walker, the Tasked son of a plantation owner, who was brutally separated from his mother when his father sold her away. Hiram becomes the servant of Maynard, his Quality half-brother, and they are perfect foils; Maynard is a coarse, slow witted boor whose character makes the word "quality" suitably sarcastic. In contrast, it is obvious from the beginning that Hiram is gifted in many ways, including a phenomenal memory.

Hiram eventually becomes involved with The Underground Railroad, and leads people to freedom with a skill called conduction. This is magical, and involves oral story telling on the part of the conductor. As Harriet Tubman tells Hiram, "Memory is the chariot and memory is the way." This seems spiritual, a way to acknowledge the world while rising above it.

This is a thought provoking novel with well written characters, and I recommend it highly.