Fox Creek
A Novel
An expansive novel with a varied cast, Fox Creek is about plantation life in the South.
In M. E. Torrey’s riveting historical novel Fox Creek, Black and white people on a plantation experience and enact racial prejudice and injustice during the tempestuous antebellum period.
Monette, the daughter of a Black mother and a white father, is a child when she’s taken away from one plantation and sold to the Fox Creek plantation near New Orleans. She is befriended by Kate, the plantation owner’s daughter. As the girls mature, each is forced to assume her “proper” role as enslaver or enslaved; their relationship is challenged.
Kate’s grandmother, Mehitable, is determined to make sure Monette “knows her place,” accusing her of “eating and drinking” like she owns the place and hitting her with her cane. Meanwhile, Kate’s brother, Breck, teaches Monette and another enslaved person, Footy, to read even though it is illegal. All the while, Monette’s dreams are haunted by her past. Further, an unlikely romance between Monette and Breck threatens any chance for peace on the plantation; ultimately, this development adds little to the central storyline.
The broad cast also includes the plantation owner, William, who struggles with the responsibility of maintaining the plantation; his wife Sara, who has a complicated pregnancy and resents her overbearing mother-in-law; and Cyrus, a young enslaved man who arrived at Fox Creek with Monette and who looks out for her throughout the story. The narrative shifts between their perspectives to present many aspects of life on the plantation.
Explorations of relationships between men and women, between Black and white people, and between parents and children come via conversations and intimate situations too, with people fleshed out best in connection to one another. For example, Kate and Monette play together early on in the novel. Later, when Kate becomes romantically interested in someone, she leaves behind her life as Monette’s friend. Meanwhile, William is frustrated by Breck’s “weakness” in regard to the enslaved, and Monette is marginalized among other enslaved people because of her “yellow” skin tone and the privileges it carries.
While New Orleans and areas beyond the plantation are described in fluid but adjective-heavy prose, resulting in some period color, the bulk of the narrative is focused on the Fox Creek plantation as a microcosm of antebellum life in Louisiana. Relationships change as the story continues, resulting in surprises as the book moves toward its intriguing conclusion.
A rich historical novel, Fox Creek is about the challenges, considerations, and concerns of enslaved people and plantation owners in the antebellum South.
Reviewed by
Caroline Goldberg Igra
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
