Book Review: The Sport of the Gods

"This was but for an hour, for even while they exclaimed they knew that there was no way, and that the stream of young negro life would continue to flow up from the South, dashing itself against the hard necessities of the city and breaking like waves against a rock, -- that until the gods grew tired of their cruel sport, there must still be sacrifices to false ideals and unreal ambitions."

The Sport of the Gods is a novel by Paul Laurence Dunbar, better known as an African-American poet. It's an intense story about an African-American family in the post Civil War era, who are unjustly accused and ostracized for a crime they didn't commit. While the father is imprisoned, the mother, son and daughter are forced to travel north to New York, to pick up the pieces of their lives. The hardships they experience and endure causes drastic, as well as dramatic changes in their values and relationships with each other.

Once the truth is revealed, too much time and events have transpired for everything to return to the way it was before... a happier and more innocent existence for the family and those responsible for the injustices they suffered.

This novel was published in 1902 and it is indeed a classic read. It moves rather effortlessly through different situations and locations, bringing a rythmic blend to details to engage the reader as it pushes the story along. It uncovers the life and prejudices of the idyllic Southern life and juxtaposes this with the harsh realities of the urban North, also with it's own dynamics of prejudices.