Master of the Crossroads (Hardcover)

by Madison Smartt Bell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
In 1995 Madison Smartt Bell published All Souls' Rising, earning both critical plaudits and a National Book Award nomination for this fictional account of Haiti's 18th-century slave rebellion. Now he continues the saga with Master of the Crossroads, the second volume of a projected trilogy. Even in his earlier narratives of contemporary America, the author has always been attuned to the byzantine politics of color. But by focusing on the figure of Toussaint Louverture--the black general who led the Haitians to independence only to be jailed for treason against the French Republic--Bell allows the politics of race to point him in unexpected and rewarding narrative directions. This is a big, muscular book, which derives much of its strength from the author's willingness to paint his tumultuous political and physical landscapes with broadly sweeping strokes. But it is also a work of surprising delicacy, whose finely drawn characters come to life with the minutest gesture or softly whispered word.

The crossroads herein are not merely literal but metaphorical. Yes, the former slaves and their courageous leader are pinned down in the island's remote interior, caught between the English forces and the Spanish army (their nominal yet treacherous ally). But more to the point, Haiti's intricate progress from slavery to freedom brings each of the characters to a crucial, defining moment of energy or introspection. And finally, swirling through the book like an island mist, is the voodoo figure of Mâit' Kalfou, or the "Master of the Crossroads." Straddling the worlds of the dead and the living, this ecstatic spirit may at any time inhabit the body of a believer:

Between Legba and Kalfou the crossroads stood open now, and now Guiaou could feel that opened pathway rushing up his spine--passage from the Island Below Sea inhabited by les Morts et les Mystères. His hips melted into the movement of the drums, and the tails of the red coat swirled around his legs like feathers of a bird. With the other dancers he closed the small, tight circle around Legba and Kalfou, who faced each other as in a mirror: the shining surface of the waters, which divides the living from the dead.

Throughout, Bell's captivating vision of the battlefield bears witness to his rigorous research. Still, the voodoo celebrations, and the author's sly evocation of their unexpected resonance, remain the novel's strongest moments. Why? They speak, perhaps, to the apocalyptic nature of the Haitian rebellion. And more intriguingly, they permit Bell to play with the deceptive nature of belief and reality--a move that, in an avowedly historical novel, hints at the ironic fluidity of history itself. --Kelly Flynn

From Publishers Weekly
Bell manages the bravura feat of bringing coherence and novelistic focus to the intrinsically complex history of Haiti's national liberator in this second installment in his brutal, sweeping trilogy. The first volume, All Souls' Rising, a National Book Award finalist, took the slave revolt in Haiti up to 1793, when the great leader Toussaint Louverture was consolidating power. Continuing his stunning historical fresco, Bell traces the intricate weave of Toussaint's campaigns with an intelligence and verve reminiscent of Shelby Foote's classic military histories, braiding his rich character studies into the larger scheme. Racial classification was a science in Haiti in the 18th century, and the subtlest variations in skin color determined the treatment each person received. Riau, Toussaint's godson, is an ex-slave. For him, the desire of the white planters to reintroduce slavery, and their fundamental racism, is evident, but Riau's hatred doesn't vitiate his humanity. Riau does trust Toussaint's secretary, a white doctor, Antoine H bert. A subplot running like a silver thread in the shadow of the war is H bert's quest for his mulatto mistress, Nanon, after she runs away from H bert's plantation with Choufleur, a sadistic mulatto planter and Nanon's former lover, who exploits the psychodynamics of slavery in a frightening erotic context. The faltering planter aristocracy is represented by Michel Arnaud, who returns to the island although his house and lands were torched in the first phase of the revolt. Arnaud's past is one of murderous cruelty. Now, he is slowly rehabilitating himself, thanks to Claudine, his wife, who suffers from possession by the darkest Vodou spirit, Baron Samedi. Bell continually integrates his history with the sacred Vodou landscape, and as events channel between crossroads, trances, dreams and bloodshed, this mesmerizing, disturbing saga of a half-forgotten war takes on the ominous outlines and biblical proportions of a prophetic vision. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 752 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1st edition (October 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375420568
• ISBN-13: 978-0375420566
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,304,245 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Crossroads" of Destiny, July 27, 2001

By	Judy Lightfoot (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

Note: This review was published November 12, 2000, in the Seattle Times ...

The American Revolution helped inspire the French Revolution, which in turn sparked the Haitian Revolution -- an uprising of Africans against the sugar plantation owners who wrung their fabulous wealth from slave labor. Madison Smartt Bell's projected trilogy of historical novels tells the least well known of these momentous late-18th-century stories.

Volume 1, "All Souls Rising," traced the gruesome first stages of the rebellion in the French colony then called Saint Domingue, from 1791 to 1794. One who hasn't read that harrowing masterpiece can still enjoy Volume 2, "Master of the Crossroads," based on events of the next five years. In this novel the revolution is well under way, but the outcome is still uncertain.

It's a tumultuous, confusing time. The Spanish, who own the eastern half of Saint Domingue, and the British, who are at war with France, separately hope to oust the French, subdue the blacks, and possess the island known worldwide as the Jewel of the Antilles. Among the islanders, the French blancs, or white colonials, have split into factions: the royalists who want to enslave the Africans again, and the revolutionaries who believe that liberty is a universal human right. Old disputes flare between native-born Haitians and immigrants, between mulatto plantation owners and poorer mulattos, between rivals among the island's 500,000 rebellious Africans and, more broadly, between members of the resident races - 64 in all, according to France's official classification of blends ranging from Blanc to Négre.

Toussaint Louverture, whose amazing career Jacob Lawrence memorialized in a series of paintings, is at the center of the storm. Small and tough, formerly a slave, he possesses such extraordinary charisma and talent for leadership that he can force, frighten, mystify, or cajole various factions into agreeing to work for peace. Toussaint unites the armed, roving bands of blacks who seized their liberty and transforms them into a well-disciplined army. A brilliant military tactician, he regularly defeats the English and Spanish forces. His political gifts make him a formidable negotiator with the French and a master at switching alliances at strategic moments. He alone seems committed to protecting, regardless of the race or ideology of their owners, the lives and property that survived the time of bloodbath and burning.

Toussaint's motives are endlessly debated in the book. People close to him believe that he is unselfishly devoted to securing liberty and peace for everyone. But rumors that he secretly plans to crown himself King and reinstate slavery multiply. We view him from the perspectives of many different characters, yet he remains a mystery: a presence with a godlike power in crisis, an inscrutable Master of the Crossroads like the voudou deity of crossings and change, Legba.

Readers who can tolerate a little disorientation from chaotic historical events swirling around an enigmatic hero will have a wonderful time with this novel. Many of the episodes are works of literary art, the Haitian landscape is superbly rendered, and the characters are fully realized and memorable. We come to care deeply about them: Doctor Hébert; his beloved mistress Nanon; his sister Elise and her smuggler husband Tocquet; Hébert's friends the French captain Maillart and the African captain Riau; the African soldier Guiaou who is Riau's rival in love; plucky, wanton Isabelle; the dreamy boy-priest Moustique; the elusive, fascinating Toussaint.

Since Bell can't string their stories on a clear historical plot-line (this history is a tangle) he braids the everyday incidents and subtleties of their private lives into a central strand to which scattered public events can be tied. The characters, absorbed in ordinary pursuits, are regularly pulled into battles and intrigues, then released again into personal concerns. The point of view shifts from chapter to chapter, and we open each new one with the pleasure of greeting an old friend.

Nobody achieves an overall view of events -- which is partly the point. Yet even patient readers will wish for an index of characters keyed to page numbers. It's hard to keep people named Dessources, Dessalines, Desrouleaux, and Desfourneaux straight in a complicated narrative (sometimes set in Descahaux) with a cast of hundreds that also includes Delahaye and Dieudonné. The author's memory itself falters - the girl Paulette is called Pauline for a while -- but the Glossary and Chronology help.

Without them "Master of the Crossroads" would still be a stunning achievement: marvelously crafted, meticulous in its historical detail, magnificent in its sweep.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As Magnificent as All Souls' Rising, and that's saying a lot, July 27, 2005

By	Larry Dilg (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm in the middle of the trilogy here, so I don't want to waste too much time writing about the unfinished work, but after 750 pages, let me note that I'm still spellbound by Bell's work. I love the way the title informs the whole work: at each crossroads (and there are many) I marvel at Toussaint's vision. Sometimes he slips out of his carriage or off the road at just the right time to avoid ambush or attack, more often than not in a kind of trance. The crossroads also seems like the meeting of two worlds, whether the spiritual and carnal, the Christian and Vodoun, or European and African. Riau and even Doctor Hebert have some mastery of those crossroads, as do some of the minor characters like Claudine and Moustique. I love the religious syncretism of this novel -- it's at once modern and ancient. Haiti is such a melting pot of culture, race, history, and belief that it's no wonder the stew is still bubbling. Even in poverty and despair, something so rich, so deeply, darkly true is being created that this reader feels compelled to journey there to taste it for himself.

The violence and politics continue to shock and delight. I particularly loved the story of Choufleur in this novel -- the kind of character you love to hate -- and the complex portrayal of Elise's new husband, Toquet. As for the many developments in the life of the characters -- births, deaths, victories, defeats, etc. -- one reads them passionately, but after 1500 pages they are threads in a tapestry that's still a work in progress. I'd love to discuss them with others, but I'm moving on.

In the meantime, there are the pleasures of Bell's trilogy to savor and enjoy. His writing is so confident, his grasp of the wide sweep of narrative and history so embracing, and his sense of the eternal so inspiring that I eagerly plunge on to The Stone that the Builders Refused.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Historical fiction at its finest, March 11, 2001

By A Customer

I'd second what the other reviewers noted but would like to add that this is a follow-up to Bell's highly-praised All Souls Rising, also a masterful book about Haiti and one which first introduced many of these characters. The legacy of Toussaint is important for Haiti today, and this book gives valuable insights into today's world. The book can be a tough read--many of the descriptions of the atrocities are brutal--but is well worth the effort. Take time to read the timeline in the appendix and find out what happened after Toussaint's arrest.