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 Cane by Stevie Woods
Our story opens in 1855 on the Caribbean Island of Sint Maarten, which has been colonized by the Dutch. They grow sugarcane here on huge plantations supported by African slave labor. At the Spinnaker plantation, owned by his strict father, this is the only life that Pieter Van Leyden has ever known. However, Pieter has unusual sympathy for the slaves. This is because he lost his mother at an early age and subsequently came to think of his father's housekeeper Effie as a surrogate mother. He grew up as an inseparable playmate to her children, Tillie and Joss.
Unbeknownst to his father, Pieter turns out to be attracted to men. When 22 year-old Pieter returns to the plantation after finishing his education in Amsterdam, he and Joss have a secret affair.
But Mr. Van Leyden wants Pieter to get married. When he finds out about Pieter and Joss, he's absolutely horrified. He sells Joss to parts unknown, and banishes Pieter back to Amsterdam.
Heartbroken, Pieter attempts to learn more about the plantation business so that he can make his way in the world. He continues to develop his position on slave labor (which gets increasingly abolitionist as the novel progresses). He also has a few discreet affairs – and one brief, but memorable meeting with an American plantation owner named, fittingly, Sebastian Cane. Though the years pass, Pieter can't seem to forget Sebastian.
Eventually Pieter goes to Louisiana to find work as a plantation manager. He is astonished to get hired by none other than Sebastian Cane. Not only that, he discovers Joss among Sebastian's slaves! Add to this an evil overseer and the impending American Civil War, and you have the ingredients for a conflict.
Cane deals with some extremely complex material, and could not have been easy to write. Because of this, it sometimes overloads the underlying research into the story at the expense of the pacing. For example, the beginning felt sluggish. For me, conflict is the spark that carries the narrative. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I got a sense of conflict in the opening paragraph when Pieter is afraid he'll get caught with Joss. Then the momentum gets buried under the summarized exposition and extraneous scenes in Amsterdam until it sparks to life again in Chapter 2 with Mr. Van Leyden ordering Pieter to get married. Likewise, a four-page flashback on page 60 happens in the middle of a conversation and kills its momentum.
To its credit, Cane takes a realistic view of its time and place. Pieter may deplore the use of slave labor, but the narrative reminds us that it did serve to turn a profit. Cane avoids naïve solutions to the slavery problem and conveys the fact that these plantation owners in Louisiana were both isolated by extremes of climate and outnumbered by the slave population. A slave uprising would mean their annihilation. Therefore there really wasn't an easy way to reform the system.
Also to its credit, Cane is more than a romance even though it does contain some explicit sex scenes. (Warning: there is also a graphic scene of nonconsensual sex.) The love affairs are secondary to the plot. Instead, the novel reads more like an historical coming-of-age story with the evolution of Pieter's moral character giving it structure. Eventually, even the fact that he's gay seems less important than that he's turning into an abolitionist. Because of this, it seemed to me that Cane grew stronger as a novel towards the end. The ending also holds promise for a sequel.
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