A Million Nightingales: A Novel

by Susan Straight

A haunting, beautifully written novel set in early-nineteenth-century the tale of a slave girl’s journey—emotional and physical—from captivity to freedom.
Susan Straight has been called “a writer of exceptional gifts and grace” (Joyce Carol Oates). In A Million Nightingales she brings those gifts to bear on the story of Moinette, daughter of an African mother and a white father she never knew. While her mother cares for the plantation linens, Moinette tends to the master’s daughter, which allows her to eavesdrop on lessons. She also learns that she is property, and at fourteen she is sold, separated from her mother without a chance to say goodbye. Heartbroken and terrified, and with a full understanding of what she will risk, Moinette begins almost immediately to prepare herself for the moment when she will escape.

It is Moinette’s own voice that we hear—bright, rhythmic, observant, and altogether captivating–as she describes her journey through a world of brutality, sexual violence, and loss. Quick to see the patterns of French, American, and African life play out around her, Moinette makes her way from sugarcane fields through mysterious bayous to the streets of Opelousas, where the true meaning of freedom emerges from the bonds of love.
An uncommonly rich novel, brimming with event and character, A Million Nightingales is a powerful confirmation of the remarkable novelist we have in Susan Straight.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, African American, Historical, Literary Fiction, Book Club, Novels

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Susan Straight's newest novel is "Between Heaven and Here." It is the last in the Rio Seco Trilogy, which began with "A Million Nightingales" and "Take One Candle Light a Room." She has published eight novels, a novel for young readers and a children's book. She has also written essays and articles for numerous national publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Nation and Harper's Magazine, and is a frequent contributor to NPR and Salon.com.

Her story "Mines," first published in Zoetrope All Story, was included in Best American Short Stories 2003. She won a Lannan Literary Award in 2007. She won a 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award for her short story "The Golden Gopher."

She is a Professor at the University of California, Riverside and lives in Riverside, California.

Reviews

[Cheryl Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book even more than ever, Susan Straight creates a palette of physical details (hair, bone, ink, bodily fluids) that in turn create a world. In this case, it's French Louisiana in the early 1800s, where a young biracial slave uses her considerable wits to rise from powerlessness to relative freedom. I loved how she was something of a scientist in a time when science barely existed, always wondering about the natural world. The novel reminded me a bit of Toni Morrison's A Mercy in terms of Straight's emphasis that other groups (women, gay men, Indians, quadroons, free people of color) suffer under slavery's many variations. A sometimes sad, sometimes uplifting, always visceral book.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interior novel that would work very well as an audio book. Perhaps I think that because I heard the author read a short passage from it and her rendering was very moving. (At times I could still 'hear' the author's voice while I was reading.) Maybe I think it because some of the connections the narrator makes in her somewhat stream-of-consciousness telling might not sound as repetitive in an audio as they sometimes look to be on the page. But that is a minor issue.

Moinette's story (loosely based on court records that the author found that deal with a 'free woman of color' buying her son) is told with admirable empathy and was one I wanted to come back to when I had to put it down. Being from Louisiana, I found it interesting and important from a historical viewpoint. Much as with Holocaust stories, there may already be many fictional narratives from this time period (slavery); but that doesn't mean there aren't many unique, important stories still to be told.

I wasn't surprised to learn (from the acknowledgments) that one of the author's inspirations was Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness De Pontalba. I thought of that nonfiction book immediately while reading what happens to one of Moinette's owners.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Susan Straight's A Million Nightingales is the story of Moinette, a young teen with a white father and an African mother who is sold at the age of 14 to another slave-owner. The novel takes place during the Antebellum era of the old South.

I'm ashamed to say that I discarded this novel about mid-way through - I just didn't find it captivating or original, especially when compared to other novels on similar subject matters by Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Although there are many possible plots for novels of the Antebellum era, I didn't feel as if this particular "slave-girl" novel was interesting enough to stick out.

Straight's style in writing protagonist Moinette's voice is simplified to a degree that allows us to better hear and understand this character; however, the writing is so simplified that I failed to see the story as anything other than bland. I know that as readers, using our imagination is part of the job to relate to novels, but A Million Nightingales just isn't lively enough. The pictures painted of Moinette's experiences as a slave are vague and fuzzy, and just not colorful enough to have a major impact.

My favorite novel about the Antebellum-era is The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton. I went through a childhood phase that had me obsessed with anything about the Underground Railroad! My favorite novels by Alice Walker and Toni Morrison are The Color Purple and Beloved, respectively.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tore through this book faster than any novel in a long time. It's a glimpse into the complexity of slavery in the US.

I found myself thinking about the characters and the prose even when I wasn't reading. I love Susan Straight's writing style, character development, and subtlety.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In A Million Nightingales, her fifth novel, Susan Straight achieves parity with the writing that made Toni Morrison one of my top three most admired novelists: a perfect amalgam of intelligence, empathy and artistry.

This novel is a slave story, and like the Civil War, World War II, the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, it takes hundreds, maybe thousands of stories to encompass these huge, life altering events. Fiction, biography, memoir, as well as history books are all required to bring the tales of individual human beings, locations and the legacies of the past forward to people who live now.

Through Moinette, daughter of a Louisiana slave and a white sugarcane planter, we get an entire society and socio-economic world set in a discreet location. Susan Straight has said that she combined the stories of slave ancestors told by her in-laws with extensive research. By sheer artistic genius she transmuted it all into the life of Moinette and created a woman whose experiences made her a strong survivor.

It is a horrific tale but left me with huge love and admiration for Moinette, who was a "cadeau-fille" or "gift girl", because her mother, Marie-Therese was gifted to a visiting white planter for an evening's entertainment. Various characters present gifts to Moinette, in the form of education, protection and funds which enable her to survive. Cephaline, the rebellious daughter of Moinette's first master, who lived only to study, read and write, passed on the skill of reading to Moinette. Between Marie-Therese and Cephaline, though their words and teaching differed, Moinette worked out the basics of survival for a mixed-blood slave woman.

As in all of Ms Straight's novels, motherhood is a strong factor, as is a love of language and an implacable urge for freedom. She makes it clear that personal freedom is attained and maintained through strength, intelligence, extreme wariness and plenty of luck. Even with all of those elements in place in any individual, there are absolutely no guarantees because human beings are also capable of depths of weakness, stupidity and unawareness. Furthermore, life is random including weather and dangerous environments. These are the lessons and realities of Moinette's life.

One of the great benefits of reading an author's novels from earliest to most recent is seeing the development of the author herself. I see A Million Nightingales as Susan Straight's finest, most powerful novel. In answer to the question of what she wanted readers to take away she says, "I'd like them to take away a few hours of having lived like someone else." I have taken that from all of her novels so far, but more than ever in this one.

[ismahane ❖ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel was an emotional journey for me. I can't accurately put into words how I felt while reading it. At times I felt inspired by the characters, at other times I felt betrayed by the author. However, I do understand the author's choices for the characters since life has never been fair to anyone, let alone to slaves in 1800s Louisiana.
What I most love about this novel -is what I've come to realize that I love about all of Ms. Straight's writings,- is the sense of genuineness I feel whenever I read one of her books. While reading this book for my MA dissertation no less, I felt transported to that time period of history, I found myself adapting the way of thinking and completely immersed in the novel. Hence the red weeping eyes and puffy nose I am currently supporting while writing this review.
In short, this was an amazing read, I recommend to all who wish to take a dive into Louisiana's history and see life from the point of view of a survivor.

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reasons I'm quitting this book about halfway through:

1. Exceedingly slow plot
2. Annoying stream-of-consciousness writing, often disjointed and ESL-like (yes, I get that the main character's English may not have been that great but surely her thoughts were coherent)
3. Uninteresting main character

For those who want to know, this book is about a teenage female slave, Moinette, who is sold away from her beloved mother. I just wasn't in the mood to read the rest of the tragic stuff that happens to her, in light of the above. But if you've read this and think it's worth finishing, I'd love to hear from you!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book just about broke my heart. To live a life so fettered - emotionally, physically, intellectually - must be intolerable, but to add the loss of anyone and anything meaningful in your life has to be unbearable. Yet Moinette, our heroine in the truest sense of the word, continues on in spite of all her heartbreak.
The writing is lush and beautiful, which makes the subject matter even harder to bear, as Straight captures the rhythm and cadences of early 19th century Louisianna.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straight up, this book does it in ways that only Toni Morrison has ever touched on slavery (and more importantly the slavery of being female on a planet filled with hate for women). The language is wonderful. I'm going to read all her other books now...

[A. L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book, and am ordering more Susan Straight books through my library at once. I am very careful with the books I read that involve slavery, as the mentions of the brutality often make me physically ill. I cannot get through 12 Years a Slave without terrible nausea. And forget about the movies!

However, thankfully, A Million Nightingales did not have scenes of graphic violence. It is just blows my mind that people ever thought they could own another person, and rip a child away from it’s mother (I am completely without understanding how this is still happening in America today!).

In the beginning of the novel, Straight uses many Creole words, not always giving the reader a definition for the term. This can be confusing, but I found it to be an effective device, as Moinette is often confused and unknowing of the things of her world. As she grows in maturity and understanding, so does the reader with the creole terms. (There is also a glossary at the end of the book.)

I enjoyed the story, was very emotionally connected to Moinette, and was quite pleased to discover it was inspired by a real slave who became a free woman of color, named Manon Baldwin.

I love the empathy with which Straight writes her characters. She writes them realistically, with shades of gray. There are very few “bad guys”, and the antagonists are usually as nuanced as the protagonists and other good characters.

[Hans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for both good and ridiculous reasons, but I am really glad that I did.

Ridiculous: I recently read the third book in the trilogy Between Heaven and Here. I'm a completist, so I don't read books out of order and I read all of them.

Good: I really enjoyed Between Heaven and Here and wanted to find out the stories that occur before and after. (The third book chronologically falls between the first and second books.)

Ridiculous/Good: I discovered the GoodReads "most read" authors list feature and was embarrassed by 1) how few female authors were on the list, 2) how low they were in the rankings (first ones were tied for 22nd and that included J.K. Rowling), and 3) how high James Patterson was on the list (tied for 5th). So, I am working on getting some strong female representation in the top 10 (e.g. Margaret Atwood, Patricia Highsmith, and possibly Susan Straight).

The not as good: I thought the ending of the story felt rushed and took a few too many dark turns: syphilitic rape and the pointless death of her son. It was another case of the main character needing a restraining order from the author's plot lines. There was also one turn that did not feel true to Moinette's character: when she purchased a slave to earn money to buy her son. Though her reaction to her decision felt "back in character."

The good: I really enjoyed Moinette's journey and the poetic telling. Her involvement in so many different areas and lives did not feel forced. The plain truth moment between Cephaline and Moinette was a high point.

I'm looking forward to reading more from Susan Straight including the second book in this series.

[Rachel Swords · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first heard of this book while attending a master class by the author in New Orleans. She read an excerpt, and her gentle reading voice along with the poetry of the words convinced me to give the story a try. "A Million Nightingales" is a haunting, tragic book that tells the story of Moinette, a slave who is sold to several different masters before obtaining her freedom. Along the way, she meets many people and faces several hardships that would understandably weaken anyone, yet Moinette is able to survive due to her faith and resilient spirit. This book is additionally noteworthy for its poignant phrases and glimpse into the lifestyle of Louisiana in the early 1800s. Anyone who enjoys historical fiction or stories of courage should give "A Million Nightingales" a try.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I labored through this but kept going. I found the writing style disjointed and had a hard time keeping track of characters. I just wanted more story with this. More background and personality of characters and less description of blood this and blood that, I got tired of the main character Moinette's constantly referring to people as animal, flesh, skin, bone.....I think a little of that goes a long way and we get the point. I would like to try another of her books because I would like to see how the dialogue differs from this one. Maybe one set in modern times. I will definitely give another book a try. Just wasn't crazy about this one.

[Walt · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you are looking for a book for relaxation to read, this is not it. Read a sample first, which is what I should have done. I pride myself on my reading comprehension skills, however, I found the dialogue, the one word sentences, the repetition of coffee beans, boutons, hair, finger eating, etc., so boring that I quit this book when I reached the half way mark. There have been just two books I had to ever quit, Beloved, and now A Million Nightengales, and I have read hundreds of books in my lifetime. I truly gave this book a chance, but it did not work for me. I understand prose, but understanding this prose was VERY difficult.

[Sundry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book. I like Susan Straight’s work, and I think this is my favorite since _I Been In Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All The Pots,” though I think I’ve missed one somewhere in between.

An amazing story of a slave woman. Of women. Of intelligent women in the first half of the 19th century in the South.

I can’t really say much more about it right now, except that as hard as some of the events of the story were, I am going to miss going to Louisiana every day in my mental life.
.

[Ardene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Louisianna in first half of the nineteenth century, this is the story of Moinette, a slave mulatresse (half-white, half-black) and her search for freedom and love. Moinette is the daughter of a slave laundress who can remember crossing the ocean with her mother in a slave ship.

Moinette's mother tells her Moinette belongs to her, but in fact Moinette is sold and sent away around age 14 without a chance to say good-bye to her mother after the daughter of her owner dies (Moinette had served as her maid).

One of the things that interests me about this book is how in Moinette's view white women are only marginally better off than slave women. Cephaline, the daughter of the plantation, loves to learn, but is being prepared to marry someone wealthy in order to bring money into the family. Pelagie, another white woman she serves later in the book, is prevented from living the life she wishes to live as well. White women are sold into marriage.

Moinette tries to run back to the plantation where her mother lives, but doesn't succeed. She is raped twice in the book; the first rape results in a child, but her work takes precedence over childcare, and she doesn't get to spend much time with him. She is later sold again away from the plantation he lives on.

Her third owner, a white man from the northern US, treats her as a human being, and things start to look up. I was a bit afraid at one point that this story was going to have a happier ending than I thought was possible for the time and place, but I needn't have worried. Though the ending was a bit rushed, it did not "pretty up" slavery.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the story begins, Moinette is a 14-year-old slave on a Louisiana plantation. She is "yellow" (i.e., of mixed race), and has always lived with only her mother in le quartier (slave quarters), but is one day moved into the main house to be the personal handmaiden and hairdresser to the owner's teenage daughter, Céphaline. When Céphaline succumbs to disease, Moinette is only a reminder to her parents of their loss, and without warning Moinette is uprooted from the only life she has known.

Many nights I did not get enough sleep because, while reading in bed, I simply could not stop reading. There are many, many bite-sized sections within each chapter, each tantalizingly entreating, Oh, you know you have time to read just one more tiny, tiny piece! Look how small the next passage is! (repeat 53x) I appreciated the author's skill at storytelling in such a way that I was unable to guess what was going to happen next -- that I was even conscious of this made me aware of how even original plots are often somewhat transparent. A Million Nightingales is heartbreaking, but Moinette also has her triumphs, small and large.

[Gabby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed this book -- not bad for a blink pick off a Half Price Books clearance rack ($3 for a hardback!).

I thought that the store itself was interesting enough. Mulatto slave girl that gets sold several times, abused, and neglected, and now quite fitting in anywhere. These stories are usually filled with tragedy, sometimes with triumph. However, what fell apart a little for me was the narrator's point of view (1st person) and the stream-of-consciousness storytelling style that was only in effect part of the time. Also, because this takes place in Louisiana, there were a lot of inserted creole words and phrases, and there's only a small glossary in the back to help you out. But when there are dozens on a page, you can't keep going back and forth just to understand what's going on.

Also, the main character felt a little emotionless, at times, as if she was watching these things happen to her. Even when she says things like "I cried ..." you don't feel it.

So, it was entertaining enough to read, but ... it'll probably go back into the donate pile or given to a friend.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early 1800's: Moinette (black slave mother, unknown white father)lives on a plantation south of New Orleans in a small hut with her mother, the washer woman. Her mother is her best friend and Moinette is her mother's universe, but Moinette is about to turn fourteen -- the year a slave girl comes of age for breeding. She, however, is sent to the big house to be the personal slave of the daughter of the plantation. Cephaline is obsessed with reading and writing and is not Scarlett O'Hara, by any means. As a result of her association with Cephaline, Moinette learns to read -- a skill she hides from nearly everyone. Cephaline dies and Moinette's life is altered in ways she never dreamed. The story follows her travels from the plantation, fleeing for freedom, being sold to other plantation owners and, finally, establishing herself as business woman. This is based on a true story. The writing is superb; we see life from Moinette's point of view and exist inside her thoughts and observations. I highly recommend this book.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Straight, whose sixth novel explores family bonds, slavery, and freedom in a dark period of American history, elicited almost universal praise. Moinette, an intelligent, moving narrative presence who navigates through__even exploits__slavery's constraints, charmed critics. Straight's evocative language also impressed them, as did the depth of her historical research__from boot blacking to gory scenes of murdered runaway slaves. (A glossary of Creole and French terms helps.) Only the Los Angeles Times felt that Straight's historical novel was, first and foremost, a polished literary exercise. (The critic suggested reading more "honest historical melodrama" like Gone With the Wind). Despite this minor criticism, A Million Nightingales is an affecting, powerful story.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me a while to read. At first, I had some trouble keeping track of who was who. I was unable to connect a name with a person because there was not a lot of direct or indirect characterization to help me distinguish the characters, and some of the names were very similar.

A Million Nightingales captures the evils of slavery in an honest and terrifying way. Written in the first person perspective, Moinette takes the reader from house to house, job to job, owner to owner. She captures her entire life in 360 pages. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if I felt "closer" to the characters. I was certainly touched by Moinette's heart wrenching and eye opening journey, but I did not ever connect with her. For me, Moinette seemed very distant and the book seemed long. I did, however, appreciate her strength, patience, language, and intelligence.

Overall, this book certainly educated me about the realities of slavery that are not taught in schools, and for that, I would recommend it to others.

[Saskia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told in lyrical prose, Susan Straight's "A Million Nightingales" is a deep exploration of Moinette's life as a female slave in Louisiana. She is exposed to the pain of forced labor, being owned, treated and traded like an "animal". Having learned about spiritual life from her mother, she is engaged in a deep exploration of the dichotomies of ancient African traditions and "modern", scientific views, where - as one example - hair can be seen as keeper of spirit to one or dead matter to the other.

In her exploring mind, in taking the pain out on her own body, in her path to becoming a free woman, Moinette is ultimately a modern character. Yet the author's historical knowledge and skillful descriptions of life in the early 1800s Louisiana, make this a fascinating and beautiful historical novel.

[Sue]

I first discovered Susan Straight by accident in her oddly titled "Aquaboogie," a collection of interconnected short stories. I found the book strangely compelling & kept re-reading parts of it. A couple of years later, without realizing at first that this was the same author, I stumbled on "I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen & Licked Out All the Pots," & the followup to that, "Blacker than a Thousand Midnights." By now I was aware of her as an unusually talented author, so I deliberately looked for & read "Highwire Moon" when it came out. But somehow this trilogy escaped me until now: "A Million Nightingales" (2006), "Take One Candle, Light a Room" (2010), & "Between Heaven & Here" (2012), just reviewed in the NYT.

LATER: I read about one third of the book. I felt it sort of fizzled out. Think I'd rather go back & re-read "Blacker than a Thousand Midnights"!

[Shauna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Susan Straight. If her publishing life had begun 10 years earlier, she'd be the queen of American letters, as in tone and content she's better matched with Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, and Jane Smiley than Allison Krauss, Audrey Niffenegger, Vendela Vida, et al.

Oh well.

But here she is, and like I said, I do love her, though I'm yet to read a novel of hers as magnifcent as her short stories. A Million Nightingales was stunning at the outset -- I was reminded of the experience of reading N. Scott Momaday -- but the last third seemed mechanical, an appendage. Still so well worth it.

[Mert · Rating 1 out of 5]

1/5 Stars (%5/100)

-Very slow pacing plot. (The book is very long and the plot goes very slow. So double the problem)
-Not a very interesting main character. (A young mulatto girl named Moinette who is sold to slavery multiple times.)
-Not a very original story. (We have seen a lot, I mean a lot, of stories dealing with black people escaping slavery etc. I don't have a problem with this if the characters are interesting. Beloved and The Color Purple are some of the good examples.)
-Trying to implement stream-of-consciousness but failing.

Overall, I found it boring and difficult to read. I kept comparing it to similar books and it made me dislike it even more. Try it yourself, some people seem to enjoy it a lot.

[Jessica Yvonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was a pretty good read. It gave me a break from some of the modern setting books I was reading. The main character in the book is placed in situations thag are trying both physically & mentally. She endures many hardships in life in hopes of become free person and buying the freedom of her son & mother. Although the story seems slow at first many things occur during her lifetime. It is really a tragic story that reflects many issues (racism, slavery, bigotry, & homosexuality). The only thing I feel the author could have changed would be to put references at the bottom of the page for the language (Creol, French, African, etc.) that was used a lot throughout the novel.

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a little hard going at first because the writing is very stream of consciousness and disjointed, but after a chapter or two I had the rhythm of it. Moinette is a high colour (half white, half black) slave in Louisiana before the Americans buy the area from France. She is sold when she is fourteen, and constantly yearns to be reunited with her mother. Moinette has an inquiring mind and is forever trying to make sense of things. How can she be an animal and her owners animals, and still not be equal? How are they different? Why are they different? The story contained a lot of detail about the times and kept me interested to the end.

[Sophfronia Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more. There's some beautiful writing here and Susan Straight does a good job of bringing to life an early 1800s Louisiana still struggling with the newness of its statehood. Also, really, how can I resist a story with characters named Sophia and Fronie? But I was frustrated with the novel's one note tone. I know the main character, the slave girl Moinette, feels deeply--she misses her beloved mother, for example--but everything she relates is told in the same deadpan, matter-of-fact voice. There's no sense of tension despite the life and death situations going on throughout the story. As a result the book is not a satisfying read.

[History Lover · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had me thinking about it months after reading it. I loved this book because, it was real, the author did not sugar coat anything. I had a connection to the main character. My mother. When I finished the book, I couldn't help but cry. It made me think of life, death and everything between. I will never forget this book as long as I live. The pain and sadness was so striking! Although at first I found it hard to follow, since a lot of French was spoken! But as time grew I adjusted. After I finished, I went around my high school recommending it to everyone. I must say that it was heartbreaking

[Poupina]

A trilogy, set in the 50s, following a slave girl's journey from captivity in La to freedom in CA. Highlighting the emotional strain and abuse of slaves in the early 19th century, the main characters have true voices - they speak Creole French throughout the book. This makes the story feel really authentic, and there's a glossary in the back describing terms for those who might find it difficult to read. Another highlight is the issue of rape & the views that can be discussed once you read the book.