Dominion - Calvin Baker
by Zia ~ December 11th, 2006. Filed under: Books.
Jasper Merian is freed from bondage. It’s the end of the 17th century, and he hews out a farm in the wilds of the Carolinas, battling a demon for dominion. He takes a wife and has a son, Purchase. Well after he tries to buy his first wife and son out of slavery (and fails), his first son Marcus appears. And all of a sudden, he is the patriarch of a thriving farm, Stonehouses, and the generations that come after him. Through Jasper, both his sons, and the grandson Caleum, Dominion tracks the lives of the Merian family through the generations, until Caleum must defeat the same demon his grandfather did years before.
I wasn’t sure about this one at first. The prose seemed inflated, with drawn-out arcane language and pseudo-historical conceits. Two pages, five pages, the first chapter … they were a little irritating. Suddenly, it all fell into place. It worked. Baker’s tale is rich in mythology; indeed, his characters have the weighty authority of legend while still alive. As Americans, we all live with a mythology of those who settled this land and carved out an existence. Baker adds yet another dimension; hokey as it sounds, he manages to interweave diversity into history without making it the entire story. And this is what I found so compelling; while Edward P Jones (who we all know I hate) talks about slavery, Baker talks about context. The result is a wonderfully compelling read that will make you relearn your early American history, and perhaps even infuse it with a magic that wasn’t there before. Highly, highly recommend.