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The Weight of Cloth
SOUTH CAROLINA. Mid-1700’s. Four narrators: one privileged and three enslaved.
When Eliza is just sixteen, her father departs for the West Indies leaving her in charge of three heavily mortgaged plantations. Her authority will be challenged, including by her mother. A second epidemic erupts and a slave rebellion sweeps the countryside, upending assumptions about safety and order. Can Eliza survive and bring a profitable indigo crop to market? Can she hold out for love rather than settle for a marriage of convenience?
Melody, also sixteen, fights against the constraints of slavery with small rebellions. Her most subversive act? Teaching her sons to read. Will freedom lay down a path near enough for it to matter?
July sews like a Parisian couturier, but her defensive pride crumbles when two boys die of the pox. She cries out to the Ancestors for wisdom.
Saffron and her daughter, Maggie, are bewildered and traumatized by the harrowing voyage from Africa. Saffron calls upon her innate gift of language to make sense of things, but Maggie’s nearly catatonic. Meanwhile, the plantation’s best hunter, Indian Pete, catches Saffron's eye and she wonders if love can exist in such a place. His knowledge of the landscape holds the key to a daring opportunity that could change Saffron and Maggie’s fate forever.
The Weight of Cloth offers an unflinching view of history through facts gleaned from the letters of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and extensive research. In spite of the relentless degradation of slavery, the story speaks to the power of resistance and love and highlights both small and large acts of courage. These characters and their stories will stay with you long after you finish the last page.
When Eliza is just sixteen, her father departs for the West Indies leaving her in charge of three heavily mortgaged plantations. Her authority will be challenged, including by her mother. A second epidemic erupts and a slave rebellion sweeps the countryside, upending assumptions about safety and order. Can Eliza survive and bring a profitable indigo crop to market? Can she hold out for love rather than settle for a marriage of convenience?
Melody, also sixteen, fights against the constraints of slavery with small rebellions. Her most subversive act? Teaching her sons to read. Will freedom lay down a path near enough for it to matter?
July sews like a Parisian couturier, but her defensive pride crumbles when two boys die of the pox. She cries out to the Ancestors for wisdom.
Saffron and her daughter, Maggie, are bewildered and traumatized by the harrowing voyage from Africa. Saffron calls upon her innate gift of language to make sense of things, but Maggie’s nearly catatonic. Meanwhile, the plantation’s best hunter, Indian Pete, catches Saffron's eye and she wonders if love can exist in such a place. His knowledge of the landscape holds the key to a daring opportunity that could change Saffron and Maggie’s fate forever.
The Weight of Cloth offers an unflinching view of history through facts gleaned from the letters of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and extensive research. In spite of the relentless degradation of slavery, the story speaks to the power of resistance and love and highlights both small and large acts of courage. These characters and their stories will stay with you long after you finish the last page.
329 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 5, 2024
62 people are currently reading
304 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 23, 2024
I finished “The Weight of Cloth” today, having blown off the things I was supposed to do for the third afternoon in a row. I love this book! When was the last time a book made me feel so much, or took me to another place entirely? I had to just sit for a while afterwards and let it all settle. How did I get attached to so many characters? It took me a while to come back to suburban Boston, and I did so reluctantly.
Plot: check. Character development: check. Vibrant sense of place: check. But I think it was the author’s use of language that got to me the most. So gorgeous. Her spirit was evident on every page.
I’m in that place of fullness and emptiness you get after finishing a book you fell in love with. I haven’t started a new book because I know it won’t be as good, not by a mile.
Plot: check. Character development: check. Vibrant sense of place: check. But I think it was the author’s use of language that got to me the most. So gorgeous. Her spirit was evident on every page.
I’m in that place of fullness and emptiness you get after finishing a book you fell in love with. I haven’t started a new book because I know it won’t be as good, not by a mile.
March 10, 2025
slavery era, historical fiction, this subject is important. the book was deeply researched and thoughtful, right through to the maps to freedom in the slaves hair.
September 17, 2025
This book has so much substance and so well researched! I was drawn right away back to the mid-1700's where the story followed 4 main characters who each related their story. I like that each character story was in the first person so I felt like I was a 'fly on the wall' watching it unfold! The story was chronicled so well! Kudos to Dee Mallon!
March 20, 2025
This book is an historical fiction account of Eliza Lucas Pinckney of South Carolina from 1737 to 1744. The distinctive idea of this book is that it includes the points of view of several enslaved people in Eliza's life. In 1737, Eliza is fifteen years old, Melody is about nineteen, Saffron is about twenty five and July is somewhere between thirty and forty five. Eliza's father has bought a plantation in South Carolina, and the family moves there from the island of Antigua. Eliza's world according to her mother is to be spent meeting friends and a future husband, all the while, acting like a woman in 1737 should. Having lived in Antigua, Eliza is no stranger to the tiered culture of white and Black, man and woman. But when her father leaves the plantation to fulfill a career appointment back in Antigua, he surprises all by leaving a girl in charge of the plantation, his daughter, Eliza. Eliza must keep the finances and the crops well tended. Now, Eliza, Melody, Saffron, July and other enslaved people on the plantation must understand their place in the world and how they can best relate to each other. Eliza wants their labor to keep the finances, Melody and Saffron want their freedom. July wants peace. In addition, attractive men are in the mix.
Eliza Lucas Pinckney was a real person. She never relinquished the idea of slavery. She also had compassion for the people in her midst, enslaved or not. The Weight of Cloth gives us an idea of what it was like for a white woman and enslaved people to live together in a land dominated by white men; it draws us into their world of desires, joys and disappointments.
For a different perspective on Eliza's life and the enslaved people she lived with, Natasha Boyd's The Indigo Girl, gives us more of the horticulture side of growing indigo, which due to Eliza and enslaved peoples' efforts became a commanding crop in South Carolina.
Eliza Lucas Pinckney was a real person. She never relinquished the idea of slavery. She also had compassion for the people in her midst, enslaved or not. The Weight of Cloth gives us an idea of what it was like for a white woman and enslaved people to live together in a land dominated by white men; it draws us into their world of desires, joys and disappointments.
For a different perspective on Eliza's life and the enslaved people she lived with, Natasha Boyd's The Indigo Girl, gives us more of the horticulture side of growing indigo, which due to Eliza and enslaved peoples' efforts became a commanding crop in South Carolina.
October 4, 2025
This stunning debut historical novel by Dee Mallon had me from the first page. The story sweeps forward from the Caribbean to South Carolina in the 1700’s, with characters both privileged and enslaved drawn so skillfully they stay with you long after you finish the book. We meet the capable and determined Eliza Lucas Pinckney—credited with the development of indigo in the US—impeccably researched and beautifully portrayed. But it is the enslaved people who work for her and her family who capture your heart. We feel the almost unspeakable cruelty inflicted on them, but their creativity, beauty, and strength are all the more luminous. Each one shimmers with life. Mallon’s prose is vivid, gripping, often gorgeous. What a writer! Truly, a fabulous read that you can’t put down.
May 4, 2025
The story of hope and hardship of life in slavory.
I loved hearing the language and life of how slavery was used and accepted as a way of life. Black slaves used , to do everything for their owners. Things we have not experienced. A sad, beautifully written story. A way to understand what many are still holding on to. May we all learn from this what our history means.
I loved hearing the language and life of how slavery was used and accepted as a way of life. Black slaves used , to do everything for their owners. Things we have not experienced. A sad, beautifully written story. A way to understand what many are still holding on to. May we all learn from this what our history means.
June 24, 2025
recommend
The cast of characters is a little confusing at first. They all have different voices, so they are easy to sort. The prevailing theme of the need for liberty thrums consistently.
The cast of characters is a little confusing at first. They all have different voices, so they are easy to sort. The prevailing theme of the need for liberty thrums consistently.
August 18, 2025
Such a long slow read! I rarely don't finish a book, but I came close to not finishing this one. IMHO there was no growth in the majority of the main characters, thus no character development.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews