After spending a semester studying slavery, and particularly slave insurrections this little gem popped up on my LibraryThing recommendations. The beauty of this book is the uncommon point of view from which it is written - that of the white mistress of the plantation. While most modern authors would have chosen to present this story from the slave's perspective, Martin bucks the trend. What results is a n excellent representation of a woman who is a product of her environment. A very interesting read. ( )

This little 193 page book packs quite a punch. The narrator is Manon Gaudet, the bitter and selfish mistress of a sugar cane plantation in Louisiana, and wife to a sadistic and domineering husband whom she detests. Manon is every bit as much his "property" as the slaves are, and her powerlessness is not much different than theirs. Property won the Orange Prize in 2003, and it explores the evils of slavery and unlimited power over others, and the self-distructive effect it has on the society that condones and participates in it. I can't really say that I liked this book, it's too powerful and disturbing to like. But I am glad I read it. ( )

Edna Pontellier ('The Awakening') meets Uncle Tom's Cabin with a touch of Beloved. This would be an okay text for an undergrad course on images of women in literature; it incisively raises the issue of one (white) woman's unthinking complicity in the enslavement of an(black)other. ( )

Incisive short novel form the p-o-v of a plantation owner's wife in pre-Emancipation Louisiana. Manon Gaudet is royally pissed off because her husband turned out to be a dull, money-squandering brute with a taste for sadism. He's forced a sexual relationship on Sarah, a beautiful house 'servant,' as Manon calls her. Despite the fact that he is as cruel, or crueler, to Sarah than he is to his wife, Manon bemoans her loneliness and isolation without ever considering that Sarah and she might be natural allies. In fact, she goes out of her way to ensure that Sarah shares her misery. I haven't run into a protagonist/narrator this unlikable since Humbert Humbert.
Why: it was on my mother-in-law's bookshelf and promised to provide a story to get lost in.
Author: I've read one other book by Martin, something about a villa in Italy, which I liked well enough, but did not think I'd read her again. I was quite impressed with Property. ( )

A powerful book that is completely readable despite the fact that it deals with so many heavy issues. Valerie Martin's approach is subtle and understated but revelatory. Her characters always reveal more to the reader than they understand themselves -- certainly more than they intend to reveal. (Compare the narrator here (Manon) and Mary Reilly from the author's other historical novel.) As a result, there's always a touch of ambiguity. The reader is left to contemplate the issues without being told what to think by the author. ( )