This is terrible and wonderful together. It's an outstanding piece of literature, being the life of a woman born into slavery who, in her efforts to escape it, spent seven years hiding in her grandmother's crawlspace, watching her children grow up without her. She and they eventually get to freedom (of a sort) in the North, but her experiences are awful. As is to be expected, unfortunately. Slavery is a revolting, vicious institution, and as Jacobs points out - and she was one of the first, the introduction makes plain, to drag this particular consequence into public discussion - it was in many ways worse for women.

Jacobs herself, continually sexually harassed by her perverted enslaver, is one of the innumerable women who were raped and/or assaulted by men who believed their ownership entitled them not only to sexual enjoyment of their slaves, but to ownership of any resulting children. Not that that ownership seems to have been ameliorated by any sense of paternal feeling, as these kids were frequently ripped away from their mothers by their fathers so that those fathers could sell them off. The whole thing is vile, absolutely vile, and Jacobs drags it out into the light by main strength. Her shame and misery fairly leak through the pages... but so does her dignity, and her determination. It's a challenging read, but such a necessary one.