Review: The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride

So I'm trying to close the gap on my Morning News Tournament of Books reading list. When the list was released, I'd scored 2 of the 17 books (a record low), and now I'm on three. At this pace I'll have read maybe four or five when the gates open. I'm hoping to have a my uninformed rundown and odds as soon as the pairings for the first round is announced, but for now, please accept my notes on The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride.

The Good Lord Bird is a great historical romp, a journey into the heart of the slavery issue when race was almost literally tearing the country apart. It's 1857, and Henry, a young light-skinned slave in Kansas territory, is liberated by the infamous John Brown several years before his ill-fated raid on Harper's Ferry in Virginia sparks the US civil war.

As a reward, Henry travels with John Brown's party, sleeping in the dirt, eating wild game, and enduring Brown's hours-long prayer sessions as he plots the violent liberation of all the slaves in America. Also, because of a mix-up, John Brown thinks Henry is a girl, and so Henry spends four years living in a dress, indolently letting the menfolk around him do all the heavy lifting.

The Ivory Billed Woodpecker,
also known as the
Lord God Bird or, in this novel,
the Good Lord Bird

It's a great setup for a novel, and McBride plays it well for satire, humor, and pathos by turn. Like Huck Finn before him, Henry is a more or less innocent child, gifted in observing what the grown-ups miss: John Brown is insane, for example, and some blacks in slavery are better off than Henry is in his 'freedom.' That is, the situation is more complex than you think.

Then there's a lot of picaresque scene-hopping as Henry loses touch with Brown and lives in a brothel for two years of drinking and loose-living. This tests his disguise as a girl and his emerging 'manly urges.' Then, after reuniting with John Brown, there are a few Forrest-Gump-ish twists, where Henry manages to meet Frederick Douglass, who is painted as a drunken lecher, and Harriet Tubman, who is an unimpeachable saint, before the final inevitable showdown at Harpers Ferry.

Any quibbles? Sure. You'll have to put up with a lot of semi-ridiculous corn-pone phraseology that may or may not be authentic and/or your cup of tea. I can put up with several different euphemisms for boobs each starting with 'love' ('love sacks,' 'love knockers,' etc,) and endure a mouth being called a red lane ten or fifteen times (as in, 'I threw that drink down my little red lane...' ) because just as often, McBride's language is deliriously inventive. But I was forced to look up the etymology of three questionable words: mojo, drinkie-poo, and pixilated. I could confirm only one of them was in use in the 1850's. Bonus points to you if you find out which one.

The ridiculousness of Henry's masquerade isn't ignored by by McBride. Henry continues to question his own masculinity, which is an interesting tack for a novel that on the surface seems to be about slavery and freedom. By the end, however, Henry has thrown off his dress and accepted his fate: to live as a man and a disciple of God. It's a strange conclusion to what had seemingly been a secular novel about freedom, madness, and destiny.

"Be a man: follow God" isn't exactly the theme I was looking for. But that only confirms what I'd known from the first few pages: This is not, sort of, the novel you're expecting, but it's definitely worth the trip.