Edward P. Jones

When a plantation proprietor and former slave--now possessing slaves of his own--dies, his household falls apart in the wake of a slave rebellion and corrupt underpaid patrollers who enable free black people to be sold into slavery.

The author shares his views of black thought and the conditions of black life in America during the 1940's and early 1950's.

A collection of fourteen short stories is set in Washington, D.C., and follows morally complex characters caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations of modern city life.