Queen by Alex hailey

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Queen by Alex Hailey
Queen: The Story of an American Family is a partially factual historical novel written in 1993 by Alex Haley. In this work, the author brings back to consciousness the plight of the children born out of affairs between female slaves and their masters. This novel is partially factual since it appears to recount the life of the author Alex Haley’s grandmother. Haley’s grandmother, Queen, had been born out of an illegitimate affair between James Jackson III and Ester his slave.
In the novel, the author recounts Queen’s early life as a slave girl. He describes how Queen longed to know her father and how truth gradually dawned on her that she was the daughter of her master. Following the abolition of slavery at the end of the Civil War, she was cast out. Her father, scared of compromising his legitimate children’s inheritance and annoying his wife who openly despised Queen, could not acknowledge that Queen was his daughter.
After going through several unpleasant adventures, Queen got married to Alec Haley, a former slave with whom she had a son called Simon. At the time of their marriage, both of them had a son from past relationships. Simon grew up and married Betha Palmer with whom he had three children; George the lawyer, Julius, the architect, and Alex, the writer of the historical novel titled “Queen: The Story of an American Family.” Unfortunately, Alex passed on before he could complete writing the novel and so David Stevens took over from where he had left (Shirley and Wagner 34).

Stevens was guided by the notes and outline left behind by Alex as he was by the various long conversations they had with Alex.

Work Cited
Shirley, David, and Heather Lehr Wagner. Alex Haley. Infobase Publishing, 2009.