It’s easy, at first glance, to critique James McBride’s award-winning novel as a flippant, perhaps insensitive, retelling of the prelude to the American Civil War. But on closer inspection, The Good Lord Bird is a multifaceted narrative that captivatingly tells the tale of John Brown and his notorious end, as a tragic comedy.

Brown was the white abolitionist who led an attack on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry that was said to have been a catalyst for the Civil War. McBride portrays him partly as a military genius, but mostly as a religious quack, and the story follows a young boy, Onion, whom Brown takes under his wing. Onion narrates from the future looking back. In his old age he sounds like something out of a Clint Eastwood film and is at times, downright crude: ‘The Negro comes in many colors. Dark. Black. Blacker. Blackest. Blacker than night. Black as hell. Black as tar.’

Brown constantly tries to free slaves who don’t want to be freed; Onion, who is a freed slave, is continually in a state of confusion about where he fits into the world. Onion, mistaken by Brown as a girl, is also a half cast – he says, satirically: ‘I just don’t know where I belongs, being a tragic mulatto and all.’

McBride pokes fun at Brown’s ‘connection’ to God and how it allowed him to feel it was his right to lead slaves to freedom, killing anyone who got in his way. Brown constantly reels off verses from the Bible to his soldiers who pay little to no attention to him, and even doze off. It’s a joke that perhaps runs a bit dry, but this is a solitary slip in the novel. The Good Lord Bird is a great story on a number of levels, recommended for fans of vibrant historical writing.

Ella Mittas is a freelance reviewer.