BOOK COLLECTOR

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride, Riverhead, 417 pages, $27.95 2013 National Book Award Winner The Omen of The Good Lord Bird: American Slavery and the Story of John Brown as Tragicomedy Nearly two decades since the publication of his sensational memoir, The Color of Water, James McBride has spun another fantastic and comedic yarn--this time of John Brown’s rebellion in The Good Lord Bird .  Winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, McBride frames his novel as a recovered slave narrative recounted by Henry ‘the Onion’ Shackleford and ghost-written by an “amateur historian” of dubious reputation. This fiction, the prologue informs readers, is the product of an unverified document, written by a person of uncertain character, recounted from the memory of a another man said to be a centenarian that nobody remembers, about an event that lacks historical eyewitness testimony. So, while, incredulous readers won't be fooled by the creative historic framing of this ...