The Drinking Gourd

In the 13th book of the Benjamin January mysteries, Benjamin's participation in the Underground Railroad takes a turn for the complicated. The plot starts when Benjamin is summoned to the small town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the local Railroad workers need a doctor who knows how to keep secrets. He brings along his friend Hannibal (a white man) for protection, and they soon find that there are many more secrets around than either anticipated.

This is a hard book to talk about without spoilers because of those very secrets. Many characters who seem trustworthy prove not to be, and first appearances count for very little. But without giving away specific plot details, I can say that the book deals with a paradox that's been around since at least Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale: "For though myself be a full vicious man / yet I can tell a moral tale". In this case, if the local Underground Railroad absolutely depends on one man, how much harm can that man do before it balances out the lives he's saving? Does it ever? Can good and evil even be balanced on the same scale like that? Benjamin is forced to ask himself how much he can tolerate to keep open this line of the Underground Railroad.

And he's not the only one facing hard decisions. Many people in this book are striving to justify the balance of good and evil in their lives, or just trying to find the easiest path between two terrible fates. It's a book of incredibly complicated choices, and many of the answers the characters give could be betrayals or salvations; it all depends on your perspective.

Another theme is the position of women (and I kind of mourn the absence of Rose in this book, because I'd love to see her comments on it all. Though I suppose it's easy to guess what she would say). Black and white, free or slave, married or single, upper class or prostitute, they're all trapped by the patriarchy and left with few options. Whether they sacrifice themselves or those with yet less power, there's no way to break those chains without someone suffering for it. Also – I can't think of a way to bring this up subtly – there is a lot of rape in this book (though none of it "on screen"), so if that's something you're sensitive to, be aware.

If there's anything I would critique, it's that Drinking Gourd is a little too busy, especially at the beginning, although it's hard to fault the book for that because there's an enormous cast to be introduced, complete with all of their relationships and rivalries, not to mention a new setting to describe. The mystery hangs on a complicated tangle of 'who knew what when and where were they?', which necessitates the telling of yet more detailed information. Personally, I missed seeing the characters get a chance to simply breathe and spend time together, and I would have liked more space for their emotional reactions after some of the dramatic moments. But that lack (if it even is one; I'm sure some readers are bored with those sort of characterization details and prefer the action) makes room for a book that is one of the grandest in the series, and which grapples with questions of a deeper and darker nature.

You could easily read this book without knowing anything about the rest of the series. It's a book that takes seriously the problems of ethical action in a flawed world, of the impossibility of escaping from any awful situation without causing damage, and it gives a picture of American history which is complicated and layered and hugely engrossing. As dark as this book is, it was hard to stop reading. Highly recommended.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1575803908