Delia was born a slave and then physically and emotionally battered all of her seventeen years. Finally free, she strikes out on her own, making friends with a little band of former slaves and a handsome black soldier, Ezra Johns. A long and arduous journey takes this rag-tag band of survivors through a violent flood, bitter southerners, hunger and exhaustion under a blazing summer sun, and even a murder charge and near lynching. With the help of two humble farmers, they at last earn their train and boat fare to Boston. Back in his home city, Ezra works to complete his education. However, he discovers that despite his service to his country, black men still must struggle for respect and a place in American society.
Two characters are disturbing. Jack, an emancipated slave, who lusts after white women and Master, who apologetically gives a small sum of cash and his last name to a slave girl he fathered. Jack is violently killed and Master is exonerated. Of all the misdeeds that a newly freed slave could do, Gouge chooses the disgusting premise of the KKK (Birth of a Nation); that black men lust after white women. At the same time, Gouge sympathizes with a white planter who raped and impregnated enslaved black women .
Even though parts of the book seemed a bit "young adult" to me in the writing style, I got engrossed in the story and finished it in a couple of days. I thought that it gave some great examples of some of the horrors of slavery which added great detail to the story line.
The characters were pretty flushed out and you became invested in their journey North. Towards the end it did seem a bit hokey at the way Delia started fitting in.