Frederick Douglass’s first memoir is the horrific and harrowing childhood and young adulthood as an enslaved person in the United States. His writing is amazing. It’s really interesting to view this as an activist/abolitionist piece of nonfiction in the years leading up to the Civil War, propelling the cause forward in a way that’s only paralleled by Uncle Tom’s Cabin and several other firsthand accounts of life in slavery. It should be no surprise that this is far, far better than Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Douglass’s account is detailed, shocking, and genuinely inspiring. His analysis of the systems of power and control are still relevant today. One of the greatest American writers of all time! My review is not very in depth because I chose to complain about Percival Everett’s recent novel, James, for far, far too long. Admittedly, I did want to read this because of my disappointment with that book. I wanted the real deal, and Frederick Douglass is perhaps the realest man to ever live.
