Fifteen years after its hardcover debut, an FSG Classics reissue of the celebrated work of narrative nonfiction that won the National Book Award and changed the American conversation about race, with a new introduction by the author
The Ball family hails from South Carolina—Charleston and thereabouts. Their rice plantations were among the oldest and longest-standing plantations in the American South. Between 1698 and 1865, close to four thousand black people were born into slavery to the Balls or were bought by them. In Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball recounts his effort to track down and meet the descendants of his family's slaves. Part historical narrative, part oral history, part personal story of investigation and catharsis, Slaves in the Family is, in the words of Pat Conroy, "a work of breathtaking generosity and courage, a magnificent study of the complexity and strangeness and beauty of the word ‘family.'"
