![]() ![]() gets to the root of some of our culture’s thorniest problems through specific, accurate storytelling. Like James Baldwin or Toni Morrison, Robert Jones Jr. ![]() Amos negotiates with Paul and offers to use his role as a religious leader to help run the plantation and keep the peace. The other involves an older enslaved man, Amos, who decides to take on the role of preacher as a way to attain power for a worthy goal: He wants to protect his female partner from the plantation owner, Paul. The most important and sympathetic thread involves Samuel and Isaiah, two enslaved boys who grow up as best friends and eventually become lovers. In particular, two of these stories are on a collision course. ![]() From one point of view, certain actions seem perfectly reasonable, but another storyline may reveal their harm. Jones excels at ensemble storytelling, treating each character with compassion while also being brutally unsparing. One of the most outstanding things about this novel is its artistry, both in its language and its use of multiple perspectives. Robert Jones Jr.’s remarkable first novel, The Prophets, accomplishes the exceptional literary feat of being at once an intimate, poetic love story and a sweeping, detailed and excruciating portrait of life on a Mississippi plantation. ![]()
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