The Book of Training by Colonel Hap Thompson of Roanoke, VA, 1843: Annotated From the Library of John C. Calhoun

by Percival Everett

Percival Everett’s The Book of Training by Colonel Hap Thompson of Roanoke, VA, 1843, Annotated From the Library of John C. Calhoun, is poetry within the harsh confines of a mock historical document―a guidebook for the American slave owner. The collection features lists of instructions for buying, training, and punishing, equations for calculating present and future profits, and handwritten annotations affirming the brutal contents. The Book of Training lays bare the mechanics of the peculiar institution of slavery and challenges readers to place themselves in the uncomfortable vantage point of those who have bought and enslaved human beings.

Genres: Poetry, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical

50 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 15, 2019

About the author

Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.

The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”

Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.

Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brief (and inexpensive) book by the newest of my favorite authors, of whom I've read four works
each so different from the others I would not have known they're all his,
is written in free verse,
with marginalia by an attentive reader.

The subject of the manual is the training of slaves.

Below is Colonel Hap Thompson's introduction.
The notes in the margin here are "well said!" and "such a text is long overdue!"

😶

MY NAME IS COLONEL HAP THOMPSON.

I am a land-owning white gentleman of the
American Southern state of Virginia.
Word has is that my great-great-grandpappy
landed in Jamestown in 1607, then
simply James Fort.

I am by nature a kind,
generous, peaceful, ungrudging man,
known in these parts for
my successful relationships
with the poor black wretches that
we rescued from that dark and rayless
continent, brought here to be turned from pagans into heathens—
our Lord is a merciful One—
to be given the chance,
the pathetic, woeful black beasts,
to escape this hell on Earth.
We offered them salvation,

deliverance by the blood
of our lily-white Lord
God Jesus.
My name, my name
is Colonel Hap Thompson.
I am a trainer, a handler of slaves.
I read the Bible every day.

😶

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m sure there are readers who do not already have a visceral repulsion to slavery, the legacy from which today's white supremacy sprouts, but they will never read this 46-page fictional training manual for slave owners. From the first words, my stomach turned, so to say I read it is an overstatement. I couldn’t. I skimmed through it enough to know that if I sank into it, I’d be heaving over the toilet bowl.

This is my 15th Percival Everett book, so I am a fan. In addition to being a wild writer, he is a horse trainer, and he uses that background for this book. And the result is appropriately disgusting. If you have the least doubt about the repugnance of our founding history or the need to acknowledge it and atone, read this along with the true account of one of the last living slaves, reported by Zora Neale Hurston, Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" .

[Jonathan K (Max Outlier) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everett transports himself to the days of slavery with a handbook written by a Slave Owner. Next to each short statement hand written comments appear though many are illegible. I'm not exactly sure what the intention of this is super short story was but I can't help but think it's a nasty poke at the ongoing racism today. Not much else to say since it's a five minute read at best

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extreme satire. I would probably only recommend reading this after you've read Erasure and maybe two other of Everett's books. You also have to understand the foundation of white supremacy in this country in order to fully appreciate the satirical intent. He makes the banality of evil as down by hate-filled buffoons. Perhaps read The Sellout by Paul Beatty as well. It's a challenging read that makes you think about the racism America fostered and profited from. As it still does today. To see black people as animals takes an ideology of white supremacy. To dehumanize takes the dehumanization of white people. The callous indifference and lack of critical thinking of people like the narrator makes you wonder if we're stuck in oblivion with regard to white supremacy. As others have noted the book sometimes feels like an art project and the form the satire takes is poetry. You can read and reread the book to see Everett's intent to satirize the "innocent white slaveholder" as the revisionists of history want it to be. This takes a sledgehammer to that narrative of white innocence. They are complicit because they believed in an ideology that they made money from. The capitalist, racist, white supremacist and ignorant all band together to form a story like this. It's about time we look in the mirror and look in the past and understand the infection is not going away. Also, Jess Row's White Flights would be a good book to read along with this. Hell, at this point I'm mostly talking to myself. I like Percival Everett's work because it's not bullshit. There's a lot of bullshit published these days but I can say Percival Everett's work is not bullshit. And that's about all I can say. I'd throw a hashtag in but this is Goodreads.

[Phyllis · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would be hard for anything to more clearly show slavery for what it is than this 46-page satire. It won't make you laugh. It is not a tale to be enjoyed. It is stark, brutal, and so very sadly true.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of poems written as if it was a how-to guide for 'training' slaves that had then been annotated by a slaveholder who read it. Though it's really much better to think of it as an art piece than as a poetry collection. The idea of making a (believable) fake historical pamphlet that then also includes the handwritten notes and thoughts of another slave owner as a lens through which to view this period of history is creative, and to me at least, novel. For the most part, it's successful, assuming its purpose is to make the reader deeply uncomfortable. So much fiction written about slavery falls into one of two camps: Gone With The Wind types of books that gloss over slavery in favor of "humanizing" the plantation owners, or narratives that focus on slaves escaping to freedom which are ultimately uplifting. This book sits you down and forces you to stare at the ugly truth. White people treated black people horrifically and they believed themselves right to do so. It's not uplifting and it doesn't gloss over jack shit.

The only aspect that I felt missed the mark was the font/lettering choice for the annotations. They are supposed to be written by John C. Calhoun (7th Vice President of the US, pro-slavery advocate, and all around ass-hat) which adds in a little extra dash of salt. {Note: Hap Thompson does not appear to be a historical person}. The faux-Calhoun handwriting is atrocious, which would be fine, except that it's really hard to read. Most of it is decipherable, but there were a couple occasions where I just couldn't figure it out and had to give up. Perhaps a finer pen would have been better.

One final note: Everett is an American author from Georgia currently living in California. This book was published in Canada. I think that says a lot about the need for such a book.

[Carol Tilley · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Read via digital galley provided by publisher at Edelweiss) A powerful, slight book of poems that forces readers to think of slavery from the perspective of the "trainer". For white folks like me, this book serves an important role of reminding us of the insidious nature of this most peculiar institution.

[Online Stig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Väldigt tung läsning. Mkt att tänka kring.

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curious experiment in prose poetry that would likelier be found in another author’s Miscellany. Then again, I’m no Juan Ashbery or Mary Rilke, so two cents and all that.

[chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very disturbing. Would probably be a pleasurable read for the MAGA crowd.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so creepy and awful. Perhaps a perfect Halloween read. A manual on how to select and train your slaves, particularly by lashing. With annotations from another slavery-owning trainer/reader.
.
Gaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh actual American history is so brutal. I’d have high school students read this. It’s so short and gets the horror across so much faster than so many other texts / movies / etc.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughts coming shortly

[Leonard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to rate this and didn't want to mark any of the stars, but apparently need to in order to write a review. It took a while for me to figure out where this comes from but apparently it's the writings of a racist slaveowner from the 1800s, writings that were taken by another to include in this book. It's written in poetic form for reasons that are not entirely clear since it doesn't seem to be poetry, and the poetic form gives it more integrity than it deserves. It is useful information in that it tells us how hateful and malicious the slave trade and the ownership of slaves was and still is. The slaves are always referred to with the N word, and a couple pages are devoted to the techniques of lashing them, and tries to explain why hideous mistreatment like lashing is good for the slaves. The writer refers to himself as a "good Christian man, white from head to tip of toe." Slaves are referred to as "black animals." The writer congratulates himself for helping to rescue "poor black wretches" from the "dark and rayless continent," and brought here to be turned "from pagans into heathens." Shades of Trump here. In addition the book is damaged by what appears to be hand written comments, many of them illegible, besides the text, obviously printed there intentionally, but for reasons that are not clear. It's sobering and an ongoing plague on US history and relationships, but to some extent the problem still remains with the discrimination against African Americans, Hispanics, women, Native Americans more subtle and covert but just as harmful and damaging to people and their country.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading I'm Not Sidney Poitier and learning who Percival Everett is, I went through his works and added all the books that looked interesting to my TBR. This is my third Everett book, although it's not a book, per se, but a 46 page art piece? Not sure how to describe it. It's laid out like a long poem. It's not "complete" enough to actually be perceived as a training manual, but is a collection of short, poetically formatted thoughts on the subject.

Also, similar to Everett's Strom Thurmond book I read, this is a bit meta. It's written by Everett as if he is a fictional slaveowner named Colonel Hap Thompson of Virginia--this being Thompson's published training manual. Then, the book is presented as if it is itself a copy of the manual owned by real South Carolina statesman and slaveowner John C. Calhoun, complete with Calhoun's bookplate in the front and his handwritten commentary on the book included throughout.

It's an art piece, like I said. It took me about 10-15 minutes to read. The commentary on the institute of slavery is pretty straightforward, but visceral.

[Jonathan May · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curious form for a difficult subject — these didn’t exactly read as poems, but the enjambments highlighted aspects of the textual irony (and the “notes”) that were poetic in in a horrifying way to the “audience” of the text.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an astonishing talent.
I'm not sure that a living writer has the breadth, discipline and mastery of tone that Percival Everett that he can not only produce a book like this but also created pencilled in comments for it.

[Nicolas Hoffmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well done , high satire, truly remarkable.

[JwW White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a poignant book that really delves into the dehumanizing ideology behind slavery.

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps this short book was the impetus for writing James?

[Cecillia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A small but powerful work that was difficult to read. But a good reminder of the realities of what slavery was in this country's past, especially as this history is being actively erased.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

A short (48 pages) "how-to" manual for selecting, training, and treatment of slaves. Figuring prominently is the bull whip. This is not a book one reads for pleasure. The contents are horrific. Hard to rate.

[Marian]

Satire? Only because it seems no such guide existed. If one did it would probably be some crude, haphazard notes. OTOH, the tone of said trainer extraordinaire is quite high-toned, self-righteous about dehumanizing Black people, but in a kinder, gentler way, to poach a phrase from G.H.W. Bush. Violence and a quiet hate served with a patient smile.

Presented in poetic form, presumably at least in part to heighten the irony.

Tough to read because of the regular assertion, direct or de facto, on the enslaved person's lowliness in the scale of creation, as it were, his nonhumanity. I found that worse than the references to the whip.

Weird to assign a star rating--ETA, oh why not.

Including the margin notes of a "thoughtful" reader provide a rueful comic relief.

[Chasity Clay]

..... ...

[Reagan Kapasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Especially loved devastating premise of fictionalized book (complete with marginalia) and "a pond is convenient" chapter.