The Prophets

It is plain to see that this book is a love letter to the cannon of great African American writers and their works.It is heavily influenced by the authors Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Octavia Butler and Maya Angelou amongst others. This is a sweeping story following a plantation in the Deep South of America and follows the slaves Samuel and Isaiah. Sam and Isaiah form a budding sexual and intimate relationship despite their struggles to survive on the plantation. However their daily lives on the plantation are far from harmonious and it only gets worse for the two black men as the novel progresses.

The novel also focuses on different characters perspectives like the other slaves and the slave owners family. This novel also has similar supernatural / spiritual elements like The Water Dancer which I didn't enjoy as much as the main plot line but I do feel added to the overall epicness of the novel. This will not be great for readers who need propulsive writing as this book is lilting and more of a slow burn.

But I will be ordering this in physical copy at some point as I feel I haven't got the most out of this book in an ebook format. I would love to re read this book much more slowly and take my time to connect with the slower pacing and lyrical writing style. Although I do think the last quarter of the novel could have been more purposefully condensed.

Thank you to the author Robert Jones Jr., riverrun publishing and NetGalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.