The Longest Memory is about an elderly slave named Whitechapel who offers information to his master which results in his runaway son, Chapel, being captured and subsequently whipped to death on their Virginia plantation. The overseer who whips Chapel later learns that the boy he killed was his half-brother. Whitechapel must deal with the consequences of his role in his only son's death.
The novel is set in the period when the Northern states were gradually starting to abolish slavery. There was a growing ideological gap between the north and the south, but also between generations. The novel offers the perspective of those enslaved, the plantation owner, the overseer, the plantation...
