Junie (Ballantine 2025) by Erin Crosby Eckstine is a vividly drawn work of historical fiction, set in the antebellum South, which features a complex, fully realized 16-year-old enslaved teen named Junie. While the title character is the heart and soul of the novel, other characters—good, bad, and hovering in between—fill the pages in this haunting, heartfelt story. The language is precise, often lyrical, and establishes Eckstine as a talented, thoughtful writer with a strong grasp of what propels a story forward. Junie’s character arc is dramatic as she narrates her own journey and the brutal choices she must make. Her emotional growth and developing comprehension of the world she lives in are realistically shown through her actions, thoughts, and relationships. Remarkably, this is also a ghost story—but the ghost, Minnie, who is Junie’s older “perfect” sister—is so well drawn that she is as strong a character as Junie. Even the ghost has a character arc and presence worthy of a five-star review.
The novel, set in central Alabama in 1860–61, treads carefully between and beyond the obvious tropes of antebellum literature but can’t escape the cruel White masters, the sexual abuse, the tearing apart of slave families, the torture of runaways, and long-suffering, powerless women, both White and Black. However, given the vast number of books written about this place and time, it would be hard to avoid such tropes. Eckstine explains in her Author’s Note:
I wanted to explore what it would look and feel like to see such a [enslaved] character with dreams, ambitions, love, grief, and flaws in the same way every human has; not as a means of diminishing the horror, but instead shining a light on the individual humanity of a group of people many have grown to perceive monolithically.
Eckstine also reveals in her Author’s Note that Junie is based upon one of her ancestors, Jane Cotton, the author’s great-great-great-grandmother, who escaped slavery just before the Civil War and became one of the Black founders of Coosada, Alabama. Readers are encouraged to read Eckstine’s Author’s Note, which contains information about the author’s family and the reasons behind her novel.
In the book, Junie is beautiful, looks like her mother (which plays into the plot), and is quite dark-skinned. Her older sister Minnie is also beautiful, looks like their mutual mother, but is very light-skinned. That the sisters have different fathers is apparent and integral to the plot. Their master is an alcoholic plantation owner, Mr. McQueen, whose vileness is often hidden by his staggeringly drunken condition. Equally cruel, and even more manipulative, is his foreign-born wife. They have one child, Violet, who seems to know nothing except how to read literature, sing and play the piano, and be pretty. Junie has been Violet’s maid since the two were children.
There’s something of an interesting near parallel between the story of Violet, the spoiled and beautiful White daughter, and Junie. Junie is born into slavery, but Violet is essentially sold in marriage and enslaved to a violent, wealthy man for the sake of the plantation’s much-needed financial boost. That Mr. Taylor, Violet’s suitor and then husband, is vicious is conveyed to readers early in the book. Both women are trapped—at least initially—but as the story soon shows, they are not entirely helpless.
Violet and Junie have grown up together and count each other as friends, though Junie is never allowed to forget she is Violet’s maid. The friendship will be tested, broken, and reconsidered by both in the ensuing events. Junie proves to be far more forgiving than Violet, yet it’s unclear if forgiveness will save either of them. Early on, Violet protects Junie, teaches her to read, and shares her books with Junie. Yet, Junie is the one who scrubs out Violet’s nasty chamber pot and who exists and works at the mercy of the White folks.
When the would-be suitor, rich cotton merchant Mr. Taylor, arrives at the plantation to court Violet, Junie understands almost immediately that he is a vicious man. She foresees that if he becomes Violet’s husband, he will torment and abuse her. But Violet’s own parents are too self-centered and greedy for his money to notice—or maybe to care.
In an attempt to save Violet from marrying him for the much-needed financial infusion to the failing plantation, Junie recovers an expensive necklace that was Minnie’s. She hopes to sell it to provide Violet with funds to escape the coming marriage. This plan goes almost immediately awry, however. This necklace, a bequest from their mother, was left in a container on Minnie’s grave along with other trinkets and things of value to Minnie. Taking the necklace from her grave is a serious matter, a violation of something sacred, and this act triggers Minnie’s return to Junie in the form of a specter, described in one place as “the ember that promises a forest fire.”
Thus awakened, the ghost Minnie gives Junie three challenges that she must achieve in order for Minnie to find true peace in her afterlife. One of them involves finding a missing box which contains documents which will shock Junie. As difficult as finding this box is, it proves to be the easiest of the three tasks. Junie blames herself for Minnie’s death and so is motivated to save Minnie’s soul by doing as Minnie demands—but then, Minnie asks so much that Junie wavers. Though Junie resists and this weakens Minnie’s powers, eventually she strives to complete these three tasks. In the process, she learns more about Minnie, why and how she died, and what had happened to their mother.
Junie also falls in love. A tender thread through the novel, Junie’s relationship with Caleb, the manservant of Mr. Taylor, is developed slowly, with many hits and misses between the young couple. Considering they are both enslaved and could be sold away on a whim at any moment by either owner, they move cautiously toward their love for each other. As tensions and conflicts in the plot accelerate, what will happen to the two young lovers forms one of several page-turning plot twists.
Within the novel, the writing is consistently stellar, and the author knows her way around powerful similes. For example, Eckstine writes: “The mistress walks in, surveying the room like a bird of prey.” Her descriptive writing is often lyrical and beautiful. For example, she describes the plantation where Junie lives this way:
[Junie’s] eyes fall on the tall blades of grass, each crowned with a dewdrop. The crickets chirp over the breeze that brushes through the field. Each breath tastes of green and sweet dew. Junie gazes over Bellereine, turning away from the big house until her view is the field, the sky, and the rising sun.
And the expressions of philosophy and understanding are expressed through the words of the various slaves, as with this passage in which an older, more reconciled slave tells Junie:
See, in this life, we’re all just floating down the river. You might have somewhere you wanna be, but like it or not, that river’s taking you where it wants to go. Fighting the current don’t hurt the river, it just wears you out.
All in all, Junie is an excellent book and an important one. The author achieves her goals of “shining a light on the individual humanity” of enslaved people. It is a Good Morning America Book Club Pick and an Amazon best seller.
Erin Crosby Eckstine
A native of Alabama, Erin Crosby Eckstine writes speculative historical fiction, personal essays, and “anything else she’s in the mood for,” per her webpage bio. While born in Montgomery, Eckstine grew up between the South and Los Angeles before moving to New York City to attend Barnard College. She earned a master’s in secondary English education from Stanford University and taught high school English for six years before becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their cats.
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