The Rootless
1957
Dustjacket
8” x 19”
Vantage Press, First Edition. Written by Oxford-born author Waters Edward Turpin, The Rootless opens with the haunting scene of a slave ship arriving on a chilly night. Oxford remains the only documented Middle Passage stop on the Eastern Shore of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, and the gruesome detailed scene of the dead and dying offloaded is reminiscent of the kind of oral history that Turpin may have likely heard as a child. The book tells the story of the kind of psychological trauma inherent to so-called slave society from the perspective of both the enslaved and slave holders. The mental and spiritual damage to both sides is expressed in a compelling manner.
