Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

Title: Island Beneath the Sea
Author: Isabel Allende
Type: Audiobook (Unabridged)
Narrator: S. Epatha Merkerson  
Genre: Fiction
Series: No
Copyright: 2010
Publisher: Harper Collins
Rating:  3.5 out of 5

Summary:
Toulouse Valmorain arrives in Saint-Domingue in 1770 to help his sick father and what he thinks will be a short trip turns into him staying. When he arrives at 20 he is an idealistic young man who doesn't think slavery is a good thing. The longer he stays on Saint-Domingue the more his opinion of slavery changes and he begins to think that blacks are not as human and as long as he is a just master it is alright. However, his overseer a mulatto thinks that slaves must be punished and he takes great joy in the punishments. Valmorain turns a blind eye to this because as long as he does not see it he can pretend that he is a good master.

Zarité, called Tété, is born on Saint-Domingue to a slave mother and a sailor who brought her mother from Africa. Tété's mother does not want her and thus she is sold. At the age of nine Tété is bought by Valmorain as a personal servant for his new bride. Tété is a strong young girl and she longs for her freedom. 

The story follows Tété over 40 years and as things change Valmorain and Tété become intertwined, as they travel from Saint-Domingue to Cuba and then on to New Orleans to escape the revolution that kills many plantation owners and their domestic slaves. 

Feelings:
The first thing I should say, for everyone who loves Isabel Allende, is that I have only read one other book by her, Zorro. I enjoyed it a lot but from others I heard that it was very different from her other books. That being said I really cannot compare this book with her other books.

The book starts out in first person from Tété's view but then there are things that happen and are told in detail in following chapters that are in third person from another character's perspective. I found this interesting and wondered at first if it would detract from the story but it did not. 
 
This books was very detailed and at times I felt like it was dragging, 16 hours. I did enjoy the story and all the little interior stories that were told from slaves and from the whites. Getting both sides of the story was at times very interesting but sometimes also helped to slow the story. If I had not had a long drive over which to listen to this I'm not sure I would have made it through the story. I'm pretty sure that I would not have read the print form of this book because of the slow pace it had. I do wonder however if some of the issues I had with the pace of the story were created by the narrator. She wasn't consistent and I didn't think she did a good job portraying the characters.

I liked all of the historical parts of the book as well as the religion of the slaves. It added nicely to the rigidity of the whites. The island beneath the sea is where the dead go and will be reunited with their families. This is something that I think I missed the first time or two that it was mentioned in the reading. It is little details like this that make the book different. The difference between white, mulatto, and black was striking and emphasized in the relationships between the characters.

I would recommend this to people who love Isabel Allende, or those who are interested in the history of slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas and want a fictional version. As with all historical fiction it isn't fact but it does give an interesting perspective.