Ours is a long book and challenging for the average reader (such as myself). It reminded me of reading “Song of Solomon” and my professor taking half an hour to explain the peacock scene. I was astounded because I thought it was just a peacock. This was my first encounter with ‘meta-messages’ in literature, which are hidden or deeper meanings that books can carry. These meta-messages require a deeper level of analysis and understanding to grasp fully.
Ours is filled with meta-messages. On the surface, Ours is about an all-black town founded in the 1830s by a conjured woman named Saint. She went through Arkansas, freeing enslaved people by killing their “so-called masters,” and founded Ours a few miles outside of Saint Loui.
Saint keeps Ours hidden from the white folks through her conjures. Our people spend their lives trying to figure out what freedom means. They pass on this query to their children, who struggle with little help from their parents.
Throughout the many pages, we are introduced to at least 24 people in great detail, and we get to know each of them intimately.
Ours made me think of how formerly enslaved folks had to wrestle with the question of how to be free. White folk’s freedom was not an option. Michelle mused to me that “freedom” for black folks in America has been restricted to not being owned, which is a severely constrained freedom.
Another undercurrent I discerned in Ours is how humans invariably make life more complicated than it should be. I was struck by how a community of once-enslaved people, shielded by a formidable conjure woman, found many and myriad ways to be discontented, unhappy, to resent the person who liberated them from their “so-called masters” and provided them with a sanctuary.
This introspection made me realize I’m constantly thinking humans are something we are not. We are not beings given to calm, restful lives of repose. We are given to chaos and confusion in general, and more so when coming out of trauma that doesn’t dissipate.
As I began writing this 109 pages before the end of the book, I was sure that nothing else significant would unfold in the final part of the story. However, I was proven wrong. Time travel — yep, time travel.
I do not recommend it.
