Originally appearing at: Voices of New Orleans
Voyage of Midnight by Michele Torrey
Knopf 2006
ISBN0-375-82392-4
192 pages
The slave trade in New Orleans has been thoroughly documented by all manner of writers over the years. Author Michele Torrey offers up a very interesting young-adult story on the subject, however, with the latest entry in her series of titles set on the high seas. Voyage of Midnight starts firmly in Oliver Twist territory but quickly moves to New Orleans and an adventure into the darkest corners of the hearts of men. It’s an incredibly graphic and compelling look at the Middle Passage through the eyes of a teen who initially trusts the adults around him only to learn in the harshest way possible how very wrong they are. In the process Torrey gives her readers an intimate history lesson they aren’t likely to forget for a very long time.
Philip has one of those tragic stories that fuels 19th-century literature. As an orphan, he is destined to a childhood spent in a workhouse and barely survives the jobs he is hired out to accomplish. School is a distant dream, as is any sort of affection. Then just when he seems destined for a life of grim hard labor followed by an early death, a long lost uncle appears out of nowhere, promises to send money to keep him from having to work and agrees to return for him someday. Philip would seem to have won the orphan lottery, except by page four the uncle has come and gone and Philip is soon back at work. It’s all like a dream, and for many children that’s all it might have been. But the minute he turns 12 and is cut loose from the system, he seizes at the opportunity to travel to New Orleans and find his uncle. It is the only chance at a life that Philip can see, and he’s not the kind of boy to let that sort of chance slip by.
What follows is a truly hellish trip across the Atlantic, which will make readers wonder just how anyone managed to survive long enough to colonize the New World. Philip’s uncle is not so obviously found in New Orleans (no surprise) but some very nice people are nearby and, little by little, Philip learns to trust and carve out a life for himself. Just when he seems destined to the best sort of quiet happy life, he turns a corner and there’s the missing relative. With promises of action and adventure as a crew member of his uncle’s merchant ship, it takes only a matter of minutes for Philip to leave all his newfound safety and security behind. And then the book becomes an incredible cannot-put-down story about one boy’s discovery of the horrors of slavery. From Cuba, where Philip finds himself gifted with a slave of his own, to Bonny Town in southeast Nigeria, the teen finds himself immersed in a world he had no idea existed. He tries to be supportive of his uncle and the financial windfall that slavery will bring to him, but as he helps brand the captives and then struggles to keep them alive and provide them with medical assistance, his view of the trade and his uncle begins to change. Philip no longer sees the economics his uncle touts so often; he sees the faces chained in the dark packed hold of the ship and they will never be anything less than people to him again.
It comes as no surprise to the reader that this enlightenment doesn’t exactly make Philip popular among the crew.
What could have happened on that ship with only one single boy horrified by the human tragedy he was now party to is anyone’s guess, but Torrey throws Philip a couple of curveballs that put him at a unique place to change history. Suddenly it is all up to Philip what will happen to those imprisoned men, women and children, and although the challenge is daunting, he can’t ignore it; he can’t ignore the opportunity to be a man of his convictions.
There is a lot of truly fascinating history in Torrey’s book: Bonny Town really was the leading center of slave exports in West Africa; slaves were branded in the manner she describes; and newborn slaves often met the same fate that is so casually meted out by Uncle Isaac. Because of her intense storyline, Voyage of Midnight gives readers a first rate opportunity to learn about the Middle Passage in a way vastly different from a few paragraphs in a dry textbook. Torrey has written something that on one level is just a historical novel about one teen’s high seas adventure, but if that’s all you think is here, then you are missing a lot. I learned a lot from this book — a lot — and it is the best sort of title for young readers to use as a jumping off point to so much more history of slavery and the United States. The action is fast and furious, Philip is a most admirable and believable protagonist and, best of all, there is not a single cardboard character in this story. The crew members (both good and bad) are interesting and well thought out, and the slaves are not simply filler for a story about a heroic white boy. In particular, the transformation of Oji from the Cuban slave Pea Soup to a man fighting relentlessly hard for freedom is awesome to read. This book has the whole package: a thrilling ride, a tremendous amount of learning potential and a solid human interest story. It’s all good and one of the better ways to learn about history that I’ve come across in a long time. Be sure to check out other titles in Torrey’s Chronicles of Courage series as well: Voyage of Ice and Voyage of Plunder.
