Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

Wow, this was an incredible book that you definitely keep thinking about long after you read it. Thank you very much to Harper Collins and NetGalley for the ARC!

A Sitting in St. James by Rita Williams-Garcia; Quill Tree Books, 444 pages ($17.99) Ages 16 and up.

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"Gentle reader, It gives me no pleasure to disturb you with this story, for who wants to read about slavery?"

With this note preceding her prologue, Rita Williams-Garcia, a National Book Award finalist for "One Crazy Summer," invites the reader into her brilliant, richly imagined, meticulously researched novel, set on a struggling Louisiana plantation in 1860, as 80-year-old Madame Sylvie Guilbert, "keeper of the gold and survivor of two revolutions," insists on sitting for her portrait even as the family teeters on the verge of financial ruin.

This is a masterful portrait of plantation slavery, of the tangled relationships between slave owner and enslaved, of the everyday cruelty of white entitlement and the casual acceptance of the most horrific crimes – rape, abduction, family separation, child murder – to preserve whites' self-interest.

Fearing for the future of Le Petit Cottage and her grand plan to one day reclaim the family vineyard in France, Madame Sylvie refuses to tell her son Lucien, her only surviving child, where the gold is buried. Meanwhile Lucien is scheming to save the family fortunes by arranging marriages for his two children: his white son Byron (who is in love with a fellow West Point cadet) and his mixed-race daughter Rosalie, born to a slave after Lucien brutally raped her in the cane fields. (Lucien has sent Rosalie to be educated, but his mother refuses to acknowledge her or allow her into her home.)

At the center of the novel is 16-year-old slave Thisbe, who was taken from her parents and siblings as a child of seven to be madame's maid and renamed by her mistress after Marie Antoinette's loyal dog. Expecting to be whipped with a hairbrush for the smallest misstep, Thisbe attends madame night and day and is a keen observer of madame and her family, an expert in the politics of the household, a person whose very invisibility allows her entree into the family's secrets and an awareness of the possibilities of life as a free woman. It is her voice and her story which survive.

Madame's grand party to unveil her portrait and announce Byron's engagement results in disaster for the family's fortunes, but Garcia-Williams wraps up the proceedings very neatly in a most satisfying finale.

A Sitting in St. James by Rita Williams-Garcia is based around one white family and the enslaved people who work for them that’s set around a Louisiana plantation just prior to the Civil War.
This historical story is a powerful read that has a large cast of characters whom all play a major part in this book. We have the white family, mixed-race children, enslaved people who work for them; there’s a huge plotline about children and the roles they play in the family. There’s a mixed-race child, a queer child who hides their truths.
This story has many plot lines that are all woven together and all matter. I really enjoyed the author, Rita Williams-Garcia, writing style. The way the story unfolded and how each character matters and played an important part.
I feel like this is a good way for readers to learn and take in our country’s history of racism. I have seen a handful of people who say this is way too mature for YA and that it is adult. I can see why some may think that it does cover a lot of heavy topics but I think that the teens/older teen who will be drawn to this book will know and take in the depth and emanations that the book has.
If you're looking for a hard-hitting historical read, inspired by real events. Then you’ll want to give this one a try.
If you need content warnings then please look them up this book does have a lot of them.

How is this YA? I had a hard time focusing on the quality of the story because every few chapters, it would dawn on me that the main character is an 80-year-old royalist, who refuses to face reality. At which point I would look up and say aloud, "How is this YA?!"

It's Gone with the Wind without the racist apologism. The racism is supposed to be horrific, though it mostly just feels inevitable. It's a well put together story, weaving the plots for multiple characters within this family and its plantation through a couple of weeks where everything could fall apart and the family could lose everything. Meanwhile the matriarch is ranting about how she grew up in the French court and lost everything, and how ungrateful her family is for the "culture" she brings them.

It's a soap opera with the main character being a grumpy 80-year-old royalist. How is this YA?!

We read this as a potential nominee for our internal Printz Award committee. It made the cut of our final 10 nominees.

Brief Review:

Set on an antebellum Louisiana plantation, this novel follows various members of the Guilbert family through an eventful few weeks of social life, schemes, and a forbidden romance. Madame Sylvie, the family matriarch, aims to flaunt her background as a member of pre-Revolution French aristocracy by throwing a party and commissioning a painting she can’t afford. Her son Lucien wants to elevate the social status of his illegitimate, mixed-race daughter Rosalie, and he seeks to arrange a marriage for her despite Madame Sylvie’s refusal to acknowledge Rosalie as a member of the family. Lucien’s son Byron is trying to please his grandmother by securing an engagement with a girl from a neighboring plantation despite the fact that he is in a homosexual romance. And Jane Chatham, a rebellious teenager who is staying with the Guilberts in order to take lessons in proper social behavior from Madame Sylvie, just wants to ride her horse. The various subplots involving the white protagonists are interspersed with the stories of their slaves, many of whom have suffered rape, beatings, and the sudden disappearance of family members. Despite the book’s somewhat one-dimensional characters, readers with an interest in the time period or the history of Louisiana will enjoy this novel and probably learn quite a bit from it. Comparing and contrasting this book with Gone with the Wind, while taking into account when each of these books was written and how they were researched, would make an interesting academic exercise for young adult readers.

Long Review:

Madame Sylvie Guilbert, once a member of the pre-Revolution French aristocracy, is now an elderly widow running the Louisiana plantation that is technically owned by her son Lucien. Although the plantation is in trouble financially and Madame Sylvie is deeply humiliated by the fact that both her husband and son have had illegitimate, mixed-race children by slave women, she is determined to maintain and flaunt her noble background and maintain a high social status. This attitude of superiority influences all of her decisions, such as when she agrees to bring Jane Chatham, a rebellious teenager from a neighboring plantation, into her home to teach her proper feminine behavior, and when she decides to throw an expensive party while her grandson Byron’s friend from military school is visiting. She also is eager to make official the implied marriage agreement between Byron and Eugenie Duhon from a neighboring plantation.

What Madame Sylvie doesn’t realize is that Byron and his friend Robinson Pearce are not just friends. Although Byron is resigned that it is his duty and responsibility to marry a high-class woman of French ancestry, and although he is fond of Eugenie, it is Pearce whom he loves. Robinson Pearce is a northerner and finds the rigid social expectations of the South to be strange, but he knows as well as Byron does that their homosexual relationship must be kept a secret.

Meanwhile, Lucien has decided to bring his illegitimate daughter Rosalie back from the boarding school where she’d been sent mainly to keep her out of view of her grandmother. Rosalie is a “quadroon”, that is, one quarter Black and three quarters White. Although that means she counts as black and she is a slave owned by her father, her skin color and features would allow her to pass as white. In fact, she bears a close resemblance to her grandmother, who refuses to acknowledge her and doesn’t allow her inside the house. But behind Madame Sylvie’s back, Lucien is attempting to raise Rosalie to a higher social status. He wants to marry her off to a friend’s son who is mixed-race but free.

Another significant subplot, which gives rise to the title of the book, is Madame Sylvie’s insistence that she must have her portrait painted by the most respected painter with the clearest tie to French aristocracy that she can find. At the recommendation of Eugenie Duhon, she commissions Claude Le Brun, despite being unable to afford the portrait. When Le Brun arrives, though, he’s not what she had in mind. He is planning to go to a retreat where painters discuss new techniques, a concept which Madame finds horrifying. And he thinks that slaves would make good subjects for a painting. Worst of all, he demands that Madame’s personal maid Thisbe act as his assistant. Thisbe, named after Marie Antoinette’s dog, has been trained from childhood to be the epitome of subservience, and Madame Sylvie doesn’t want her getting any ideas by being exposed to other people.

The story focuses on the upper-class white characters, but there are also numerous slaves whose stories are told in bits and pieces over the course of the book. The author’s note at the end of the book specifies that this is deliberate. Most historical fiction about slavery focuses on the slaves and their perception of their owners, just as most books about the civil rights era or about racism in contemporary times focus on black protagonists and their experiences with racism. But Williams-Garcia has chosen in writing this book to present slavery from the perspective of the perpetrators, showing how entrenched they are in the assumption that black slaves are subhuman and how reliant they are on their slaves. Most of the white characters, Madame Sylvie in particular, are overly preoccupied with their own ulterior motives and schemes. Unfortunately, this results in some very one-dimensional characterization. Jane Chatham in particular is hard to like as a character because her only traits are her lack of feminine mannerisms, her confusion about social expectations, and affection for her horse and her deceased father.

This book varies greatly from Williams-Garcia’s other works in its mature subject matter and its length and complexity. The antebellum plantation setting makes it somewhat reminiscent of Gone with the Wind, although it’s remarkable just how culturally different antebellum Louisiana was from Georgia. Readers with an interest in the time period or the history of Louisiana will enjoy this book and probably learn quite a bit from it. But those who aren’t already in the subject matter probably won’t find this book as appealing. Its length and enormous cast of characters will be daunting to reluctant teen readers, and its apparent attempt to be an LGBT love story doesn’t mesh with the other plotlines of the book. Although it’s being marketed as a YA novel, this book has at least as much appeal for adults as for teen audiences.

While this may have been written for a young adult audience, it is a book that should also be savored by adults who love historical fiction. Set in 1860 Louisiana, Thisbe is the slave who is the constant companion of the matriarch of the Guilbert Plantation. She lives in the big house with Madame Sylvie and has been separated since childhood from her family who work the sugar cane fields. As Madame grows older, she continually harkens back to the days when she was a friend of Marie Antoinette and reminds all who will listen, that she was close to royalty. This gives this white plantation owner an even greater sense of entitlement and authority and prompts her to commission her portrait as a testament to her life.

Sylvie’s son Lucien is a womanizer who does not spare the slaves on the plantation from his desires. His son Byron is home from West Point with his best friend and is engaged to a lovely young woman, but his heart may lie in a different direction. Lucien’s other child was born of a slave and has been attending a convent school. She is not accepted or even acknowledged by her grandmother. Times are hard for most of the plantations in the area and the Guilbert Plantation is no exception. Lucien tries to keep the property from bankruptcy by marring off his children to bring in money.

Sylvie is also working to save Guilbert and so she takes in a wild, unpolished young woman who will be taught deportment and etiquette. The simple solution to their financial straits would be to turn over the family’s buried treasure to Lucien, but the matriarch is not ready to do that.

The Civil War has not yet started but the underlying tenets of the Southern philosophy rings loud and clear. The white owners are harsh in their condemnation of Lincoln and the idea of freeing the slaves. The deep-rooted prejudice and condescension toward African-Americans is underscored, exposing the ugliness of the plantation mentality. Besides the slaves, mixed race people and free people of color are also victims of the Southern bigotry. This is a world of intolerance and entitlement.

A great cast of characters adds to the fascination of the novel. All the residents of the plantation are beautifully rendered and captivating. They are more than stereotypes, revealing a complexity that enriches the novel. The people who come to stay at the plantation are also well-drawn and bring varied attitudes to the scene.

As the title suggests, the book culminates in Madame Sylvie having her portrait painted. Just as the painting is ready to be displayed to the family, the relationships between the characters reach a climax and so does the fate of the plantation.

All in all this is an astounding book. It's so thoroughly researched, and harrowing to read. I think teen readers of today will appreciate characters they can relate to and that demonstrate that people have had ranges of genders and sexualities since forever. It's an interesting choice to create some white characters in this rotten world that you root for, but that is a strategy to keep people reading and also ask the really hard question of how people could seem otherwise nice and interesting and be witness to the horrors of slavery. The reason I rated it four stars and not five was that I found the storytelling itself a little uneven. When you have a large cast of characters, there are some storylines that end up intriguing more than others, and also I felt like the plot of the book didn't really pick up until the last 30% or so. Before that it felt almost like vignettes that painted a very vivid portrait of the setting and characters but weren't pushing a lot of plot.

BOOK REPORT for A Sitting in St. James by Rita Williams-Garcia

Cover Story: What Makes a Man
BFF Charm: Bertie Bott's Every Flavor
Swoonworthy Scale: -50
Talky Talk: Slice of Life (on a Louisiana Plantation in the 1860s)
Bonus Factor: LGBTQ+
Anti-Bonus Factor: Realities of Life (on a Louisiana Plantation in the 1860s)
Relationship Status: Unsettled

Content Warning: A Sitting in St. James is filled with the realities of life on a plantation while slavery was legal—harsh realities like racism, classism, sexism, rape, physical abuse, brutality, racist slurs, and more.

Cover Story: What Makes a Man
The fact that this cover shows a vision of plantation life, formed into the shape of a person, is a really poignant image. It takes a minute to make it all come together—and I totally thought the shape was of a man at first, but looking more closely, I see some dangly earrings—but give it a long glance and it really hits home. (It also has a bit of an Annihilation vibe, but that's not what you're supposed to take away from it.)

The Deal:
Madame Sylvie Guilbert has been running the plantation Le Petite Cottage for more than half a decade. And now that she's nearing her golden years, she wants to keep up appearances with a professionally painted portrait of herself. But hers isn't the only story on the plantation, and her family's glowing reputation is merely gilt.

BFF Charm: Bertie Bott's Every Flavor
This charm is actually a little too nice for how I feel about most of the characters in this book. For the few that I liked, the rest I absolutely abhorred. Even when they seemed decent, they did something awful only a few paragraphs later and revealed their true nature. And even the ones I liked I don't think I could be real friends with. Our lives are just too, too different.

Swoonworthy Scale: -50
See the Content Warning above. Even though there were a couple of decent relationships in the book, the rest of the "couplings" put a severe damper on any amount of swoon there could have otherwise been.

Talky Talk: Slice of Life (on a Louisiana Plantation in the 1860s)
A Sitting in St. James is an unflinching, unflattering, uncomfortable look at what life was like for Louisiana planters of the 1860s—themselves, their families, their friends, and their slaves, who were sometimes also one or more of the above. I struggled with the language of the era and the way the Guilbert family would shift from likable folk to hateful monsters in the same paragraph. There were many times I wanted to put the book down (specifically the numerous instances of rape or the treatment of female slaves as little better than cattle), but I kept reading, knowing that the discomfort I faced was a laughable shadow when compared to the realities of the day.

Truth be told, not much—in the way of plot—happens in the book. But there's a power behind the simple storylines that drive home the book's extremely important information. In A Sitting in St. James, Williams has crafted an honest look at the horrors of the era that doesn't treat it like horrors, instead focusing on the people who lived it. She never makes excuses for their behavior, but she also doesn't exactly condemn it outright, leaving it up to the reader to do that for themselves.

Bonus Factor: LGBTQ+
I was surprised to find multiple characters who, although it wasn't expressly stated (it being the 1860s and all), fit on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Gay or bisexual men, a possible trans character, and a possible lesbian and/or asexual character. I might have just been reading into the relationships Wiliams-Garcia created, but they were certainly coded in a way that made it pretty easy to assume. (I mean this all in a good way; it's not like queer folk just appeared out of thin air in the late 1900s!)

Anti-Bonus Factor: Realities of Life (on a Louisiana Plantation in the 1860s)
I've already written a bunch about the horrors of this novel. The worst part about it is that it all actually happened. Perhaps not exactly like Williams-Garcia wrote, since this is a work of fiction, but very similarly, time and time and time again.

Relationship Status: Unsettled
I had a hard time reading you, Book. At times, I wanted to put you down. But I told myself that it was more important to learn your message, and take it to heart than it was to feel comfortable. I'm glad I kept on reading. You'll stick with me for a long time to come.

A SITTING IN ST. JAMES by Rita Williams-Garcia is the latest title by this prolific and award-winning author (One Crazy Summer, Jumped, and Clayton Byrd Goes Underground, plus more). Set in 1860 and geared to older teens and an adult audience, this new work of historical fiction explores the multi-generation relationships on a Louisiana plantation. Key characters include Madame Sylvie Guilbert (a French aristocrat who married to escape danger), her son Lucien (portrayed as a womanizer and callous man concerned with foreclosure and finances), and her grandson, Byron (about to be engaged, but in a relationship with a fellow cadet at West Point). Of course, there are many servants like Lily the cook, but young lady's maid Thisbe feature prominently as she shares her silent thoughts with readers and is transformed as the novel progresses. Booklist, Kirkus and School Library Journal all gave A SITTING IN ST. JAMES starred reviews, one reviewer referred to this title as a "difficult read" and Publishers Weekly noted the "rutalization of its Black characters, including manifold instances of beatings, sexual assault, and slurs." I, too, found it challenging to find empathy for the characters, many of whom are very self-centered and prone to violence, and would give this novel a neutral 3 star rating.

A meticulously researched, beautiful and confounding rendering of the putrid institution of slavery. Devastating and enlightening. Full review to come.

Full review published in the June Issue of BookPage. See link below

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins Children's Books, and Quill Tree Books for a digital ARC of A Sitting in St. James in exchange for an honest review.

A Sitting in St. James is incredibly well-written historical fiction - richly detailed and thoroughly researched, with a strong narrative voice that leads the reader through a somewhat meandering but necessary exploration of the particular histories of each character and the systems that trap them.

The story focuses on the barely-hanging-on Le Petit Cottage plantation a year before the start of the American Civil War: its domineering matriarch Madame Sylvie; her lecherous and abusive son; her grandson Byron, who is as in love with the Southern "way of life" as he is his fellow West Point classmate Pearce; her un-acknowledged mixed-race granddaughter Rosalie; and most compellingly, her personal servant whom she names "Thisbe" after Marie Antoinette's dog.

This is a difficult book to review - very good, but very hard to read. It is so nuanced and so effective at portraying the callous dehumanization that drove the enslavement of Black people in the Americas, and continues to echo today. I really appreciated Rita Williams-Garcia's Author's Note at the end detailing her three-pronged inspiration for this book: a daydream, a dream, and a question from a 12 year old Black boy at a panel: "Why do they hate us?" - they meaning white people. This book is her answer. It is as much about the individual characters as it is the oppressive systems the participate in and uphold.

At a certain point, I was so drawn into the complexities of the characters I couldn't put the book down. I actually didn't realize it's a YA book until after I finished, partially because Madame Sylvie is such a constant and dominant force in the story, and perhaps because of the themes and maturity level.

One of the more surprising characters is Jane, perhaps the original Horse Girl, who rejects the norms and expectations of her gender not as a matter of rebellion or politics but merely because they are not natural to her. I read her as possibly neurodivergent and genderqueer - though these are of course modern labels.

This book is a story of stories - the story of Madame Sylvie sitting for a portrait, but the telling of it offers many more portraits. I will be thinking about them for a long time.

Content warnings: racist violence, racial slurs, rape, murder, description of childhood sexual assault.

This book about a slaveholding family in Louisiana got off to a confusing start because I had no idea why Williams-Garcia was writing about a white family. But it quickly came together and really intrigued me. While reading I kept wondering why this was published as a YA book because it would probably find a wider audience published as an adult book but her note at the end cleared some of that up (and also cleared up why she wrote about a white family.) I hope this book ends up being made into a miniseries - so many layers that would work really well for one!

Not my usual genre, but very well-written. Complex characters covering a wide variety of issues -- many of which are difficult to read about. I think it was a good (and important!) read, but I struggle to say I "liked" it.

There are many books about the antebellum South, but none like this. Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier Guilbert is the matriarch of a failing Louisiana plantation family. She dwells in her past and the friendship she had with the French aristocracy before the French Revolution. She even names her personal slave (servant is Madame Sylvie’s word) Thisbe after a favorite dog of the queen. She can’t stand the sight of her son’s mulatto daughter. But privilege is not enough to save the plantation from bankruptcy. While she frets about having her portrait painted by a painter who can trace his lineage back to a well-known French portraitist, her son is working on saving the plantation though the marriage of his gay son to a girl with a wealthy family. He also is working toward getting his mulatto daughter married to the bi-racial son of a neighboring planter. Drawing on her familiy’s history, author Rita Williams-Garcia has painted in words a portrait of the inhumanity and snobbery of the American slave owners.

A very well researched exploration of both the day-to-day details and the far reaching impact of American slavery and it's impact on racism today. While difficult to read at times, this book is masterfully written and should be a must-read for anyone wishing to explore the underlying issues of hierarchical systems.

The topic of racism has always been explored in literature. In 'A Sitting in St. James', Rita Williams-Garcia dives deeper into where the root of racism began by creating a story centered around life on a plantation in the 1860s.

In her author note, Williams-Garcia tells a story of how she was on a panel where a boy asked the question, “why do they hate us?” — meaning why do white people hate Black people? Williams-Garcia then replied to his question with, “when they see us, they don’t see human beings”. This conversation was what prompted Williams-Garcia to explore the beginning of racism and to tell a story about slavery.

Williams-Garcia also goes on to tell the reader why she wanted this story to be centered around a white family. She says the Black characters can’t speak on the reasons why slavery was seen as a necessity because they didn’t create their enslavement. So she turned to the other characters who lived on this plantation. The matriarch, her son, and her grandson.

Le Petite Cottage is a struggling plantation with dark secrets. Madame Sylvie Guilbert is an 80-year-old matriarch who feels like the world owes her for the harsh life that she’s lived. She’s the product of the French royal court following the aftermath of the French Revolution. She wasn’t given many choices as to where her life would lead next so she got married at a young age to a plantation owner. She’s held on to the privilege and entitlement she had as a child and this plays a major role in who she is now.

Lucien Guilbert is the son of Madame Sylvie Guilbert and he spends most of his time desperately trying to save the plantation from all of its debt. His son, Byron, is a West Point cadet who is the heir of Le Petite Cottage. This family has ugly and painful pasts that were hard to read about at times.

This book honestly took me a while to get through because the lives this family lived were horrific. They are all painted as villains and monsters yet we see a glimpse of what makes them human, too. Williams-Garcia is an astounding author. I felt so many emotions while reading this story and I’m left pondering it days after I finished. She poured so much of her heart into answering that young boy’s question of “why do they hate us?” The research and history of telling this story right are prominent in each word she wrote.

The Guilbert family saw Black people as property and a “thing” they were owed.

The most prominent relationship in this story was between Madame Sylvie Guilbert and her servant, Thisbe. The matriarch took her from her family as a “gift” to herself. She quickly named Thisbe after Marie Antoinette’s prized pet dog. Thisbe was meant to be an extension of her body. Their relationship showcased how Madame Sylvie Guilbert saw Thisbe as non-human. She was her “pet” and would even call to Thisbe as one.

There are many more aspects of this book that I could talk about but I think I’ll leave the rest for the reader to discover on their own. It’s truly a mesmerizing story and an important one. 'A Sitting in St. James' is sure to be spoken about years from now and hopefully recommended to all readers who wish to understand the root of racism better.

The target audience for this book is ages 15 and older. I would definitely recommend it to readers of that age because there are a lot of triggering topics discussed such as abuse, murder, and rape.

I was drawn into this world, and as an adult I could process what I was reading. The characters are well developed and interesting. I do not think that this book is for children.

What an amazing historical novel! There is so much to say but I don't want to spoil anything. In this historical novel, the reader is introduced to the Guilbert family. They own a (struggling) plantation in Louisiana. The family is comprised of Madame Sylvie, the matriarch, her son and grandson and granddaughter who is of mixed race. Enter her grandson's fellow West Point classmate and lover as well as eccentric neighbor girl who isn't bound by the rules of polite society. Last but not least is Thisbe - Madame's person servant. Interpersonal relationships and the political and social ramifications of slavery obviously play a major role. I couldn't read this novel fast enough! Highly, highly recommended.

A thoroughly-engaging YA set in 1860 a year before the Civil War began. This is a story of how white slave owners did not see slaves as anything other than asserts to be used and abused by their owners. This thoroughly researched book is written by Rita Williams-Garcia who is a descendent of slaves. It is written for young people and paints an accurate picture of life on the Gilbert plantation. What I liked about it was how accurately it followed the life of six adolescents. I think this book is going to be winning lots of awards when it comes out in May 2021.