Last week was Autism Awareness/Acceptance Week, and this is an interesting and unusual historical novel with an autistic protagonist, working on a floating theatre – think Show Boat, but on the Ohio rather than the Mississippi, and in the 1830s rather than the 1880s. The part of the Ohio which they’re on is effectively an extension of the Mason-Dixon line, with slaveholding Kentucky to the south and the free states of Ohio and Indiana to the north, and our girl May inadvertently becomes involved in helping slaves to escape. So it’s a fascinating combination of themes – May’s “social awkwardness”, life on a showboat, and the Underground Railroad. It’s just a shame that it’s so short, just under 350 pages long: I think there was the potential to develop the story much more than the book actually did.
May isn’t an actress or a singer: she makes costumes. She’s always worked alongside her cousin, but, when roles begin to dry up, the cousin accepts a job giving speeches for a wealthy Abolitionist. There’s no place for May, but the woman gives her some money – but then, when she gets a job on a showboat, demands that she repay her by smuggling slaves to freedom on the opposite bank.
So, really, it’s all a bit cynical. Neither cousin becomes involved out of conviction. Both oppose slavery, but, like a lot of us with a lot of things, they haven’t actually been doing anything active about it, because they’re too busy working and getting on with their daily lives. The boyfriend of one of the actresses is a doctor who moonlights as a slave-catcher, not because he’s got any strong feelings about slavery but because it’s a good way of making a fast buck. Most of the other people in the theatre company just want to keep their heads down: expressing any strong views on a controversial subject risks stopping people from coming to see them.
And that’s the way most things go, isn’t it? People don’t get involved. But May does, because she can’t pay this woman back any other way. And, obviously, it’s very dangerous. This is before the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, but May is still breaking the law under the terms of the 1793 Act, and putting herself in physical danger as well. The horrors of slavery are really brought home to her when she meets a young girl who’s recently given birth after being raped by her master’s son, and is desperate to get both herself and her baby to a free state.
It’s really getting interesting at this point … but then the book’s cut short. The showboat goes up in flames after a curtain catches fire, and one of the men on it, Leo, himself the son of an escaped slave, is tragically killed. May and the leader of the company, after several earlier hints of romance, get together, and plan to get a new boat and continue helping slaves to escape – this time, out of genuine conviction, rather than to pay off a debt. So, apart from the death of poor Leo, it’s a positive ending, but I wish that the book had been longer.
May is “high functioning autistic”, for lack of a better expression, and I’ve an idea that she’s based on the author’s sister. The book isn’t about autism: the protagonist just happens to be autistic, although obviously autism had not been recognised in the 1830s so the term “autism” is not used. She worked brilliantly as a character. The portrayal of life on the showboat worked well too. May and her cousin getting involved in antislavery activities purely for financial reasons wasn’t really what I’d expected, but it wasn’t unconvincing. This isn’t the best book I’ve ever read, but it’s worth a go because of the combination of three interesting themes.
setinthepast 