OVOKA

A Virginia planter navigates a deadly landscape of colonial wealth and power in Keller’s debut historical novel.

In mid-18th century Virginia, Isaac Spotswood is raised on his family’s plantation, where his ambitious father forces him to work alongside the slaves to build character. They may not retain their baronet ancestor’s title, but the Spotswoods have something more valuable: land. “Wealth comes from land, not titles,” Isaac’s father insists. “We’re landowners…something you must always remember. The tenants work for us. The village belongs to us. Our presence is why they are here, to serve our needs. If we went away, all this would vanish.” Isaac gets a taste of the planter’s life when his father sends him to manage their property along Gap Run—or Ovoka, as the Indigenous people call it. When he’s not overseeing the tobacco crop, Isaac is busy courting Molly Morgan, the sharp-tongued daughter of one of the prominent local families, who stands to inherit a great deal of wealth. Isaac finds himself caught between wanting to please his father by increasing the family’s fortunes and itching to get out from beneath the man’s yoke. When Isaac learns that his father has resorted to murder-for-hire to potentially increase his holdings, he resolves that he would rather be his own man than live beneath the Spotswood tyranny. He marries Molly, and the two of them build a life for themselves in a modest cabin without relying on slave labor. Cut off from his father’s wealth, the couple learns how difficult it is to scratch a life from the rough wilderness, one in which every landowner must make moral compromises in order to survive.

The author succeeds in portraying colonial Virginia as every bit as ruthless and power-obsessed as the warring kingdoms in the Game of Thrones series, bringing some welcome complexity to historical figures like a young George Washington and Thomas Fairfax. He likewise offers a view of the hard life experienced by the White citizens of more meager backgrounds, who are often forced to do the dirty work of their betters (the perspectives of slaves and Indigenous people are not given much page time). None of the characters are quite as richly imagined as they could be, though Isaac comes closest—the chapters he narrates are appealingly gruff, marked by the laconic man’s tendency to drop the subjects from his sentences: “Reached the village. Had no plan whatsoever other than to see Molly. A courting call, unexpected, unannounced. Hopped down from my horse, laid the reins over the post, walked to their door. Knocked. Waited. Heard stirring inside.” The other chapters, told from the point of view of other characters, are less engaging by comparison, stealing focus from Keller’s exploration of his protagonist’s interiority and his culpability within the larger system. Even so, there are more than enough backroom deals and double-crosses here to keep the reader entertained.

A gritty, nuanced dramatization of the roots of American land ownership and political power.