Carolina Built is set in the post Civil War wetlands of North Carolina. Most from ’round this way (up and down the southern east coast) have ventured there; many have roots there. Though the official genre is historical fiction, it is my opinion that it reads as non-fiction, factual, true…as in the words of Richard Wright, “I did not know if the story was factually true or not, but it was emotionally true.” Josephine N. Leary is the main character as the book is based mainly on her life, ambitions, and building of legacy. Kianna Alexander makes a point with her literary portrayal of Josephine – ambition and grit can get you far; but it’s not the lengthy distance from point A to point B that makes you, it’s the variability, the ups and downs, the trusting in high country even though you have a deep knowing of the low country.
Alexander’s story-telling in Carolina Built is a nod to a time with prominent dualities – simpler yet requiring the utmost grit, analog yet progressive, rooted yet free of mind. It could be said that Josephine has the will to purchase her own shackles (because she can, not because she’d ever wear them). Formerly enslaved, we are gifted her process of becoming a wife, a mother and a successful real estate mogul. She’s fire – a one woman dynasty of sorts. But, as Alice Walker writes, “the world is too wet to be a machine”. We see her community and bloodline show up in the spaces where Josephine’s fire needs quenching; and where her vulnerabilities arise. Can she have it all? What is the price of having it all? And how much taking can suffice before the give has its hand out? Edenton, NC had a sweet spot timeline thereafter the Civil War – a timeline built of brick structures like true community, marriages, defined roles, sturdy handshakes, a grown man’s word, a grown woman’s vision. There were not many loopholes allowing for the back-and-forth that exist today. Josephine thrived in this space and time, so much so that even when literal and figurative fires burned down literal and figurative dreams; rebuilding was doable. I suppose rebuilding is always possible…when the land is one’s own.
Work Cited: Alexander, Kianna. (2022). Carolina Built. Gallery Books – Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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