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Anthony_Conty
Great Story, Too Much Detail
"Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War" by Edda L. Fields-Black tells a story that I am confident you have never heard before. We need a ton of background on Tubman on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the enslaved near the Combahee River to set the deep stage for a historic revolt.
Fields-Black makes a classy move by stressing to readers that the book is not a Tubman biography and recommending two great biographies for those seeking one. I prefer reading those. This book had so much setup that I felt guilty waiting for someone to die. I think that the raid did not start until page 325, and my patience did not.
To turn a negative into a positive, I will read other Tubman topics. The story could be amazing in different hands. Usually, I avoid responsibility by reading, but I found myself putting this one off. It picks up, surprisingly, after the raid, when Tubman works her magic and rallies the troops. Then, it inspires, but it takes a long time to get there.
It culminates in a celebration of language and individual liberty once all the introductions end, to the point that you feel bad about not enjoying the first part. Once you read the afterword, you will hear about the aftermath and triumphs that do not have the same effect in the main text. It is an odd feeling.
Fields-Black is a Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon and a good one, given the amount of research and detail included. It did not add up to a very entertaining novel for me. She did, however, remind me of how many amazing stories exist from this dark time in your history. I wanted to like it much more.
