St. James Parish, Louisiana, 1860: Aging, bitter, spiteful Madame Sylvie Guilbert and her rakish son, Lucien, embody entitlement even as the family plantation struggles financially. Lucien’s son Byron is secretly, passionately in love with his West Point classmate Pearce but will do his family duty and marry into wealth. Rosalie is Lucien’s talented quadroon daughter (Lucien raped her mother years before, just as he continues to matter-of-factly rape other enslaved women); she knows more about the business of the estate than Byron, while Madame Sylvia doesn’t acknowledge her existence. Visiting Jane Chatham is a young white woman who cares single-mindedly for her horse, enduring Madame Sylvie’s irrelevant tutelage on being a lady because she’s been told she must if she wants to keep riding. Thisbe, Madame Sylvie’s maid, is a smart and observant young Black woman who knows to keep her thoughts, ideas, and feelings to herself. Into this world comes Claude Le Brun, a white northern painter descended from a French artist; Madame Sylvie, unaware of how deeply Claude’s perspective differs from her own, insists he paint her portrait. The white characters in this masterful, mature work are diverse and singular; many face or have faced their own unique struggles, challenges, and tragedies. But what almost all have in common is unquestioning allegiance—whether casual or vehement—to ideas and a way of life that deny the humanity of the Black lives in their midst. (Age 16 and older)

Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award!

7 starred reviews! "Monumental." —Booklist (starred review) * "A marathon masterpiece."—Kirkus (starred review) * "Necessary."—SLJ (starred review) * "Shocking and dramatic."—Shelf Awareness (starred review) * "Mesmerizing, confounding and vividly rendered."—Book Page (starred review) * "Williams-Garcia’s storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic."—Horn Book (starred review)

This astonishing novel from three-time National Book Award finalist Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork—empathetic, brutal, and entirely human—and essential reading for both teens and adults grappling with the long history of American racism.

1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family’s objections, to sit for a portrait.

While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations—from the big house to out in the fields—of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved, come to light to reveal a true portrait of the Guilberts.

Rita Williams-Garcia is one of the preeminent authors of our time. She has been honored with the Children's Literature Lecture Award from the American Library Association.