The Pox Party is a story about the life of young Octavian who grew up in very unusual circumstances. Althought it wasn’t clear for some time in this story, Octavian was the son of a black slave in the mid to late eighteenth century America. I say Octavian’s life was unsusual, because the author M.T. Anderson sets the story in a colony of scientists that live communially near Boston, around the time of the Revolutionary War. Octavian was an experimental subject of the scientists who were testing to see if someone of Octavian’s race could be educated to a point similar to that of what was considered a superior white race.
As may be expected, with a novel about slavery and war, this story is filled with injustice and upheval at every turn. With the inclusion of the scientists and Octavians special circumstances this story has some very intersting twists and turns and it also leaves us with a very informative historical lesson about slavery and this tumutious part of America’s history. The language of the novel resembles the dialect of that period in time and may be difficult for some readers, but it lends an authentic touch to the story.
Anderson, M.T. (2006). The Pox party / taken from accounts by his own hand and other sundry sources; collected by Mr. M.T. Anderson of Boston. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press.
