Song Yet Sung

Song Yet Sung by James McBride is a 2008 historical fiction novel that takes place in 1850 on the eastern shore of Maryland. The central character, Liz Spocott, is a runaway slave who experiences strange dreams of the future with disturbing images that the reader can recognize as twentieth-century scenes. The novel employs magical realism and weaves historically accurate details with supernatural elements. Themes of race, class, gender, geography, and the consequences of the institution of slavery play a prominent role throughout the story.

The novel does not make use of traditional quotation marks and the characters speak in period dialects. Character dialogue in the story includes the N-word frequently, but that will not be used in the chapter summaries.

Plot Summary

Liz Spocott wakes up in the attic of Patty Cannon, a ruthless woman who steals runaways and other slaves and sells them. Patty’s slave Little George captured Liz after she had run away and narrowly escaped slave catchers. She is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head. Liz is chained to the Woman with No Name, an old woman who recognizes that Liz’s strange dreams of mark her as a “two-headed woman”—someone with connection to the future. The old Woman begins to teach Liz about “the code,” a set of rules that slaves use to communicate, but Liz finds it all incomprehensible. Liz attacks Little George, enabling the slaves in the attic to escape.

News travels through the slave network that a magical “Dreamer” bested Patty Cannon, who is furious to have lost the valuable slaves and sets out with her crew to recapture them. Meanwhile, a representative of Liz’s owner approaches Denwood Long, nicknamed the Gimp, a renowned retired slave catcher who reluctantly accepts the lavish offer to track down Liz.

Liz makes her way through the nearby swamp and finds a strange wild boy caught in a muskrat trap. She has a dream that shows her how to free him. The boy is the son of the Woolman, a huge, powerful man who had escaped from his master as a young child. The Woolman lives in harmony with nature and can move and hide in the swamp with ease. To thank Liz for freeing his son, the Woolman leaves her a bag of provisions that saves her life.

Continuing on her way, Liz meets Wiley, a teenage slave in a wagon. He hides her in a hollow tree in a secluded Indian burial ground and says that his uncle will help her. Liz forms a bond with Amber, Wiley’s uncle. Wiley and Amber are the property of Kathleen Sullivan, whose husband disappeared six months earlier.

Amber is disturbed by Liz’s insistence that there is no true freedom in the North and that she has seen in her dreams that the black people in the future are miserable, despite being free. Amber wants to put Liz on the “gospel train”—another name for the Underground Railroad—but she refuses because she sees no point.

The Woolman tries to take his injured son to Cathedral City to seek help, but he is chased away by white men, leaving his son behind. The Woolman plans to abduct a white boy in retaliation, hoping to trade him for his own son. He carries away Jeff Boy, Kathleen’s young son, and takes him to his hut in the swamp, which is hidden so well it has never been discovered. Wiley tries to pursue them, but Patty Cannon and her crew capture him.

Amber takes Liz to Cathedral City to ask for help from the blacksmith, a major figure in the gospel train network. The blacksmith eventually agrees to hide Liz and tells Amber to return home. Joe Johnson, Patty’s son-in-law, captures Amber and demands that Amber take him to the Dreamer. To throw him off Liz’s trail, Amber leads Joe towards the Indian burial ground.

While hidden in the blacksmith’s shop, Liz feels worse than ever and has more disturbing dreams of the future. Stanton, one of Patty’s men, comes to the shop and demands to inspect the back, suspecting Liz is there. Clarence, another prominent member of the gospel train, smuggles Liz out.

The Woolman is ready to begin his war on whites to reclaim his son. He encounters Patty’s group and attacks, killing one of her men. The Woolman and Patty fight and she is severely injured, but after Wiley helps her stab the Woolman, the Woolman flees. Wiley leaves Patty and rides home.

Denwood has failed to find Liz and goes to Kathleen Sullivan’s farm. There, Amber’s sister Mary says if Denwood found Amber, Amber could lead Denwood to the Dreamer. Mary asks Denwood to find Wiley as well. The slave network informs Mary that Amber was seen in the custody of a white man near Cathedral City, so Denwood sets off. As he is leaving, Kathleen asks him to also find Jeff Boy.

While Clarence is taking Liz by boat to a checkpoint on the gospel train, she has a vision that Amber is in trouble and asks Clarence to turn around. Clarence refuses, but Liz tells him of another dream of the future. She had dreamed of thousands of people of all colors listening to a black preacher, who sang the song she had heard from the Woman with No Name. Liz says that this man is the true Dreamer and that his words will change the world.

The various story threads converge. Denwood meets Joe and Amber on the road and shoots Joe dead. Wiley makes it back to the Sullivan farm and tells Kathleen that the Woolman kidnapped Jeff Boy, so she sets out to find him. Clarence brings Liz near the Woolman’s hut and she continues on her own. Patty and Stanton find Joe’s dead body.

Denwood and Amber find the Woolman’s hut and see Liz, who has discovered Jeff Boy inside. The Woolman attacks Denwood and they engage in a furious battle. Just as Denwood seems finished, Liz shoots the Woolman dead. Patty arrives, ready to exact revenge on Denwood. She shoots Stanton so there will be no white witnesses, and then realizes that there is a white boy in the hut. She draws him out and points her gun at him, but Denwood manages to grab her gun. From a distance, Kathleen shoots Patty. Denwood dies hearing Kathleen call out to her son.

In an epilogue, we learn that Kathleen sold the property where the Woolman’s hut had stood. She gives Amber his freedom and buys the Woolman’s son from the authorities. Amber takes the boy to Philadelphia, where he will raise him as his son, but first they bring Liz to the bank outside Patty’s Cannon’s house, so she can die near the spot where the Woman with No Name had died. Liz has completed her journey, having ensured the survival of the Woolman’s son, who will become the ancestor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.