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    Song Yet Sung
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    Song Yet Sung
    Unavailable
    Song Yet Sung
    Audiobook10 hours

    Song Yet Sung

    Written by James McBride

    Narrated by Leslie Uggams

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Look out for McBride's new book, Five-Carat Soul

    From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, and Kill 'Em and Leave, a James Brown biography.

    In the days before the Civil War, a runaway slave named Liz Spocott breaks free from her captors and escapes into the labyrinthine swamps of Maryland's eastern shore, setting loose a drama of violence and hope among slave catchers, plantation owners, watermen, runaway slaves, and free blacks. Liz is near death, wracked by disturbing visions of the future, and armed with "the Code," a fiercely guarded cryptic means of communication for slaves on the run. Liz's flight and her dreams of tomorrow will thrust all those near her toward a mysterious, redemptive fate.

    Filled with rich, true details-much of the story is drawn from historical events-and told in McBride's signature lyrical style, Song Yet Sung is a story of tragic triumph, violent decisions, and unexpected kindness.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 5, 2008
    ISBN9781429592536
    Unavailable
    Song Yet Sung
    Author

    James McBride

    James McBride is a civil servant in the United Kingdom who has been deployed on operations in Afghanistan. This is his fi rst novel, the culmination of ten years of writing and research. He and his wife, Elaine, have three children and live in Barry, on the coast in South Wales.

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    Reviews for Song Yet Sung

    4/5

    165 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Part fable, part fever dream, this is another devastating historical novel by the author of The Good Lord Bird. The setting is the waters and islands of Eastern Maryland, home to watermen and small farm slaveholders. An enslaved girl, Liz, escapes from a plantation owner's bed and arouses a number of recaptured men and women to free themselves from the attic of the evil slave trader Patty Cannon, surely one of the most fearsome female villains ever put to paper. Liz, is known as The Dreamer, after she is shot during her flight. She has visions from the future, including one of Martin Luther King's Dream Speech, but she sees none for herself. In her attempt to find a peaceful place to die, she draws the sympathy of a oysterman's widow, her slaves, an incredibly tall silent free man of color called Woolman, and some other local freedmen who work with Harriet Tubman, using an elaborate Code to help escapees get North. But North means nothing to The Dreamer, who knows she cannot be freed from her visions. This story will be memorably meaningful to anyone who cherishes resistance to evil.
    • 5/5
      This piece of historical fiction gets five stars from me. The somewhat magical tale of slaves, slave catchers and slave owners gives details about the working of the underground railroad. Fascinating stuff. The only other book I've read by Mcbride was his The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother , and I've wanted to read some of his fiction ever since. This is a man who appreciates women and humanity in general and helped me understand a part of history that I've explored but not in this detail. How were slaves able to pass messages so quickly over such vast areas? McBride's done his homework.
    • 5/5
      A Unique perspective on slavery, carefully observed and wonderfully written. It was ver easy to get lost in the lives of morally complex characters
    • 4/5
      Well I am not sure if it was the audio that made this book hard to enjoy or just that it wasn't something I was interested in at this time. I found some of the dialog a little hard to grasp and that could be because of the narrators inflection or accent.I enjoyed listening to the story about slaves and breaking out. The characters were hard for me to get to know or appreciate. I may have to give this book another try by actually reading the book and not listening to the audio.
    • 5/5
      Very interesting, unusual shall inspire me to listen to more of his if the narrator is the same or as good.
    • 5/5
      I really love this book! It's one of those books I would read again. I realize that part of it was fiction but to think that there was also truth in this story is facinating to me.
    • 5/5
      5 ***** and a &#10084McBride is best known for his memoir The Color of Water. Here he turns his talents to an historical novel based on the true story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad that brought so many slaves to freedom in the North. Liz Spocott, a house slave and mistress to her master, is struck on the head and afterwards can see the future in her dreams. The book opens with Liz in captivity in the attic of a tavern, run by the notorious Patty Cannon and her band of slave stealers (they capture slaves they find alone, hold them until a broker comes to town, ship them south and sell them). She is chained to an elderly “woman without a name,” who recognizes Liz’s gift and tries to impart to Liz the secret code of slaves on the freedom train. The lesson is incredibly brief, and Liz is badly wounded (she’s been shot in the head, though the musket ball hasn’t penetrated her skull) and half delirious. But still she remembers just enough so that when the opportunity presents itself Liz manages to get free (and also free the 13 other slaves in the attic with her). Of course this means that Patty and her gang will stop at nothing to find Liz. As if that weren’t enough, her master has also hired a well-known slave catcher, The Gimp, to bring Liz back to him. The other slaves are afraid of her because of her perceived powers. The rumor mill is alive with stories about The Dreamer and her magic. So Liz is all alone, ill, and barely knows a few key parts of the code. The entire novel takes place in the swamps, marshes, inlets, and woods of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay shore area (Dorchester County to be exact) in about 10 days’ time. It’s remote and unforgiving. But Liz finds help … first from The Woolman (a former slave who has been raised in the backwoods and swamps) and then from Amber (the slave of Missus Kathleen Sullivan, whose husband, along with Amber’s brother died oystering six months previously). I thought it was a compelling read, and I learned much about the Underground Railroad and life in pre-Civil War Maryland. I was immediately drawn into the story and stayed up way too late trying to finish it. When I originally read the book in April 2010, I rated this 4.5 stars because I was not sure it would appeal to everyone. But the more I thought about this book, and the more I talked about this book with other readers, the more I came to realize that I was unfairly down-grading the book. It is a FIVE-STAR book without question.UPDATE Jan 2011 – I listened to the audio book, narrated by Leslie Uggams. She does a fine job, but there’s something about her voice that just isn’t quite right. I think her pitch is too high; a man’s voice might have been better.
    • 4/5
      A good book to use for (Christian) high school. It's perfect because it has murder, attempted rape, chases, intrigue, conspiracy, kidnapping, clairvoyancy, and even romance -- lots of activity to keep it from being "boring"; it is told from multiple perspectives (though uses third person); has very evangelical passages about Jesus as Saviour and the way to freedom (to keep the Right happy); no sex, only a couple of 'bad words', and nothing really questionable along those lines. Allusion to Martin Luther King Jr is made. The good guys and bad guys are distinct, yet not cheesy. And it's well written -- not very complex, either.
      It takes place in the US during slavery days; a few slaves have escaped and one in particular is being hunted and gets involved with some loyal slaves and the Gospel Train (underground railroad) is discussed, too. Look up a summary of it.

      I haven't finished it yet (but am almost at the end), but I think it will appeal to gr.11s, both male and female, including those who don't read much.
    • 5/5
      Set in pre-Civil War days in the Chesapeake Bay region, McBride brings to life the people caught on both sides of the slave trade. Masterful storyteller. I listened to the audio version narrated by Leslie Uggams and I found it difficult to leave.
    • 2/5
      This is the fictional story of a runaway slave named Liz in Maryland. She dreams of the future as she tries to escape those who pursue her. She learns a “code” to find people who will help her and her path crosses with a strange collection of slaves and slave-owners. The story itself fell flat for me. There was a huge emphasis put on Liz’s ability to see the future in her dreams. That element felt forced and I was more interested in some of the peripheral characters than I was in Liz. The most horrifying part of the story is the character of Miss Patty Cannon. She was a real person who kidnapped free black people and sold them into slavery at the beginning of the 19th century. BOTTOM LINE: Skip it and read the nonfiction memoir The Color of Water by the same author or Kindred by Olivia Butler.  
    • 5/5
      As the title suggests, Song Yet Sung is a story of what is and what is to come. Set in Maryland in the mid-Nineteenth Century, James McBride tells a gripping tale of fugitive slaves, free slaves, and of others bound by different circumstances. This is the story of Liz Spocott, who escapes from brutal captivity only to be ensnared by the vicious Patty Cannon, an infamous slave stealer. While being held in a cramped attic with a dozen other slaves, Liz is recognized as "the Dreamer," a long-awaited seer who provides glimpses into a future the slaves can hardly believe. An ancient old woman chained next to Liz introduces her to "the code," a fairly intricate and, at times, baffling set of rituals for fleeing slavery on "The Gospel Train." Liz is not interested in fleeing to the north, but nonetheless manages to find the means to free herself and the other slaves held by Patty Cannon. From here, the race is on. Liz' owner hires a seasoned slave hunter who gives Patty Cannon some competition in the quest to recapture Liz. The chase is a page turner. The reader is treated to intimate glimpses of the Chesapeakers' hard-scrabble life, regardless of their skin color. Liz encounters all range of hindrance and aid. Her chilling, beautiful visions of the future plant the seeds of freedom in America.There is a redemptive air to this tale, as there was in McBride's memoir, the Color of Water, an homage of sorts to his white, Jewish mom. McBride is a gifted story teller, and this novel pays tribute to the likes of Harriet Tubman and the thousands of people who relentlessly marched forward to heal the sickness of slavery in America.
    • 4/5
      Set on the east coast of Maryland, in the mid 1800s, Song Yet Sung's main character is Liz Spocott, a runaway slave, running away from the attentions of her sexually abusive master. When we first meet her, she's been shot, and ends up chained in an attic of a tavern belonging to Miss Patty Cannon, a notorious slave stealer who also picks up runaways and sells them to slaveowners in the south. (as an aside, Miss Patty was a real person.) Liz comes to be known as "the dreamer," because she has prophetic visions of the future. While in the attic, an older slave woman tells her bits and pieces of "the code," an intricate set of signals and words by which slaves can communicate and which also may offer the way to freedom. Eventually, all of the captives break away from the attic, and Patty Cannon decides to go after them to recoup her monetary losses. But there's also another person who is hired by Liz's owner to track her down, so the stakes become higher for Liz and for the slaves that help her after her escape. It is only while she is on the run that she begins to understand the code, and she realizes, with the help of her dreams (visions of what freedom - or the lack of it - means in the future for slavery's descendants) that it is not yet complete.What really sticks out in this novel is the notion that no one even remotely connected with slavery was free. For example, Denwood, the white slave tracker hired by Liz's owner has his own reasons for doing what he does; Miss Kathleen, the owner of slaves that help Liz is tied to her land and wholly dependent on her slaves after the death of her husband; even the villainous Miss Patty is dependent on slavery to make her living. Overall, this was a fine novel, one that I can definitely recommend.
    • 4/5
      Wow, this is one intense read. I think Mr. McBride is starting to blossom as a writer as this is an original story and he sure seems to be finding his voice. The writing style is really unique, not quite like any other reading experience that comes to mind. The end is mindblowing in its speed, in both plot and style. In a way, I wish he gave a bit more detail about all the characters but the spare prose was part of the enjoyment. Definitely worth a read, but tackles some issues head on and might be unsettling to some.
    • 2/5
      This is a novel set on Maryland's eastern shore in the 1840's, when the "gospel train" was running on the underground railroad. It features a number of interesting characters in a rather thin and rambling plot. A slave named Liz Spocott, who was already prone to vivid dreams, begins to see visions of the future after a severe head wound suffered during an attempted escape--visions that include rap music, disaffected youths (black and white), Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech and other historical events. These visions lead her to believe that there is no point in trying to escape to the North, because no peace or freedom awaits there. Most of the action centers around one set of characters trying to get Liz on the gospel train, and another set trying to find and recapture her. The story line really lacked focus, although some of the writing was quite fine. Mainly, this book made me crave fresh oysters...