Trigger Warning: This is plantation
porn, so there’s a lot of stuff that’s going to offend a lot of people, though
I’d be more concerned if you’re not offended at all.
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I thought I was done with plantation porn,
until I learned the identity of “Ashley Carter.”
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In the opening chapters of the 1976 “Lance
Horner novel by Ashley Carter,”
MASTER OF BLACKOAKS, set in the antebellum
South, we meet Baxter Simon, a Mississippi slave breeder traveling with Gree, a 14-year-old slave boy whose tongue has been cut out as punishment for lying.
Simon, searching for one of his escaped slaves, stops at the Blackoaks plantation in
Alabama, where he suspects she might be hiding. The plantation owner, Ferrell
Baynard, takes an immediate dislike to Simon and insists the escaped slave is
not at Blackoaks, yet permits the slave breeder to look around. During Simon’s
tour of the plantation, he sees the Baynards’ “pureblood Fulani” slave Blade
hard at work castrating hogs and immediately makes an offer to buy him. Ferrell
Baynard refuses to sell Blade but allows Simon to thoroughly inspect Blade (
Simon
worked Blade’s foreskin back and forth several times. Blade’s…rod stiffened,
blood pulsing into it so it stood thick and rigid in the breeder’s fist.),
arousing—and outing—Ferrell Baynard’s arrogant son-in-law Styles Kenric while
doing so. Simon’s visit to Blackoaks concludes with the slave breeder finding his
escaped slave, Vinnie, who was indeed hiding on the plantation. When she attempts
to flee, Simon kills her and, to the horror of the Baynards (and reader),
throws her corpse into the hog pen, her value reduced to nothing more than food
for swine.
And we’re not even
60 pages in yet.
So, yeah, Master
of Blackoaks is not for the delicate, full of cruel acts and vile language,
with characters using the N-word so frequently and so casually you’d think you
were on Twitter. Yet, as difficult
as Master of Blackoaks is to stomach, it’s just as difficult to put down,
delivering everything a reader would want from plantation porn. If you’re not
that reader, you probably backed out during the first paragraph of this post. For the rest
of you, let’s continue.
After Baxter Simon
departs, Blackoaks is visited by a slave trader who is just as despicable, Eakins
Shivers. Shivers arrives with a coffle that “looked diseased, half-starved,
exhausted. The ankles of every man, woman, and child bled from the unrelenting
bite of their shackles with every step they took.” Though the Baynards find his
treatment of his property distasteful, Ferrell Baynard invites Shivers into his
home, where the two men talk within the confines of Ferrell’s office. Shivers
is allowed to camp on Blackoaks property for the night. The next morning,
Shivers is gone, and with him, two of the Baynards’ slaves.
Ferrell admits to
his mistress, house slave Jeanne D’Arc (often addressed as Jahndark), that the missing
men were sold, but tells his family that the slaves ran away, mostly to hide
the truth about the plantation’s shaky finances. His oldest son Ferrell-Junior
deduces what happened, however, and he does not approve. His father insists he
had to. “That’s what Baxter Simon said, Papa,” Ferrell-Junior replies. “He cut
out a slave child’s tongue because he had to.”
Even before the
sale of the slaves, Ferrell’s son-in-law Styles intuits Blackoaks has a cash
flow problem. Ferrell’s side hustle of distilling his own blend of corn liquor is
what keeps the plantation afloat now that the over-farmed land only yields
low-grade cotton. Styles, who heard the high offers Baxter Simon was making on
Blade, thinks Blackoaks should turn its attention to slave breeding, becoming
more resentful each time his father-in-law rejects the idea.
Meanwhile, his wife
Kathy is driven to tears by Styles’ physical neglect. We know why he won’t
touch her, and I might’ve spared a little bit of sympathy for him if he was merely
a closet case, especially when coming out is not an option, but Styles is a
sadistic, social-climbing asshole, who only married Kathy for her family’s
position in Southern society. When he forces himself to have sex with his wife,
he can only get aroused by causing Kathy pain. Kathy’s mother, Miz Claire, is
concerned by her daughter’s unhappiness, though she totally misjudges the
situation, worrying that Styles is too sexually demanding. “The ugly, depraved
things men demand of women. I thanked God when I became ill—yes I did!—when
your father moved out of my bedroom,” Miz Claire tells a disheartened Kathy.
The arrival of
Hunter “Hunt” Campbell, a young, attractive Yankee hired to live at Blackoaks
and tutor 15-year-old Morgan Baynard, provides a distraction, as well as an
outsider’s point of view. Hunt has little interest in living in Alabama, but it’s
crucial he put as many miles as possible between himself and Massachusetts since
his cousin found out Hunter had been fucking his wife. To the Baynards’ credit,
even though they don’t understand their new employee from the North, they are fairly
accepting of him—provided he understands his place. Namely, that he keeps his
abolitionist views to himself. Hunt rebels against this requirement in small
ways, though not always successfully. His attempt at ingratiating himself with
the kitchen slaves is merely awkward, with Jeanne d’Arc politely but strongly
encouraging Hunt to take his white ass out to dining room with the other white
folk and leave the kitchen slaves be.
Hunt makes greater
inroads when teaching Morgan. Morgan is, in today’s parlance, intellectually
disabled and struggles with his lessons, but Morgan’s “body
slave” Soapy (a.k.a. Sophocles) is a quick study. Ferrell
is none too pleased, telling Hunter that he’s wasting his time and Ferrell’s
money. “I won’t tolerate it. There is a law
against teaching Negro slaves to read. The state legislature passed that law upon
deliberation. In many ways it’s a good law,” Ferrell says.
Not wanting to be
sent back to Boston, the Yankee tutor acquiesces. Soapy is distraught, as there
was one book (never named) that he wanted to continue reading. Hunter tells him
not to worry. “Maybe I could lose it, Soapy. Somewhere you can find it. Only,
you’ve got to be careful. If anybody finds you got it, they might fire me—but
it’ll be much worse for you.”
But Hunter Campbell
isn’t exactly a hero. When his employer extends the offer of a bed wench (“I’ve
never believed it was healthy for a man—young or old—to be too long denied a
sexual outlet”), Hunt balks, knowing the woman offered him would be forced to
do so. But when he retires to his room and finds a nervous 15-year-old(!) slave
girl, Sefina, waiting for him, Hunt takes full advantage, his principles no
match against his blue balls.
‘I
Must Test You…for Viscosity’
The text on the
back of the book teases an affair between Hunt and Kathy (“He found solace and
torment with Kenric’s wife”), but beyond a make-out session in the final
chapters of the book in which Kathy seriously considers an affair with
the hunky Yankee, the pair never hook up. The teaser text on the back also suggests
Styles Kenric’s homosexuality would be featured more prominently, but it’s not
addressed again until the last few chapters, though it does so in a most
spectacular fashion, when Kathy spies her husband through her dressing room
door “inspecting” Blade’s teen-aged brother, Moab.
“Lawdy, Masta
Styles, you keep whipping my snake like that, it gonna be mighty easy to get
that juice you wants.”
Styles nodded. His
fingers tightened and he slowly stroked the boy’s penis until Moab’s hips
tightened and writhed in helpless reflex. “Do you like that, Moab?”
“Lawdy, masta…lawdy…”
The stroking
motions increased in intensity and Styles gripped the pulsing penis tighter.
Trembling with horror
and outrage at war inside her, Kathy saw that Styles was shaking visibly, like
a young boy with his first lover.
She heard Styles
mumble something unintelligible about “fluid.” His breathing quickened and he
sank to his knees before Moab. Moab’s eyes widened in disbelief at the white
man on his knees before him. Moab was almost deranged with overwhelming
passion. He could only stand, legs apart, as Styles caught him about the hips
and pressed his face against his thighs. Styles gasped, “Viscosity.”
“What masta?”
“Viscosity, Moab.”
Styles mumbled fanatically, his face pressed into the boy’s crisp black pubic
hairs. “I must test you…for viscosity…. Do you see, Moab? Oh my, God, Moab, do
you see?”
“I see, masta,”
Moab whispered helplessly as the white man crammed the dark and distended penis
between his lips, nursing it furiously.”
So, yeah, that
happens. When Kathy confronts him, Styles alternately tries to blame her for
spying then gaslight her, apologizing that she’s so upset about what she thinks
she saw. But Kathy isn’t having it: “Think I saw! I saw you on your
knees, Styles—sucking—that Black boy’s—cock!”
Kathy lobs the
expected epithets at her husband (“Homo! Homo! Homo!”) before adding: “Being a
homosexual is not nearly as rotten as your lying—your pretense.”
But Styles is
unmoved. Since divorce isn’t an option, the pair split in the only acceptable
way: Styles moves into a separate bedroom, just like his father-in-law had so many
years ago.
Road to Tragedy Paved with Boners, Bored
Rednecks
Kathy’s oldest
brother Ferrell-Junior has his own issues. FJ knows Lorna June Garrity is not
of his class, hers being in the lower-middle, but her social standing has no
bearing on her beauty. Lorna’s mother, Lucinda, bitter ever since her husband was
cheated out his inheritance by his conniving cousin Leander (all these
L names!), is determined to claim her place in Southern society and is not
above whoring her daughter out to get what she wants. (Mr. Garrity just drinks.) Lucinda gives her daughter advice that should be familiar to fans of Bobbie Gentry (or Reba McEntire or Orville Peck): “You be nice to Mr. Baynard now, Lorna June. You want him to come back again,
so you be nice to him.”
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British publisher Pan Books’ cover
for Master of Blackoaks emphasizes
the book’s cruelty over the sex. |
Lorna June is
indeed real nice to the Baynards’ hot oldest son, making sure FJ is good and
hard when she starts negotiating a more prominent place in his life, and by
extension high society.
Ferrell-Junor ultimately reasons that “the
exchange was totally fair—her beauty was worth far more than all the dull
parties his mother and her friends would ever throw.” Also: the power of
boners.
His post-nut bliss later turns
to regret when he sees his odious “friend” Gil Talmadge at the local
watering hole. The book makes clear that FJ doesn’t really like Gil but goes
along with his antics—like having a mentally disabled slave girl masturbate for
the guys’ amusement—just so he’s not shunned by the group. Gil tells FJ that Lorna
June is the town lay. “Hell, if you didn’t screw her the first time out, you’re
in a new minority, old pal,” Gil says. “Every white guy in Calvert County has
had ole Lorna June Garrity—at least once.”
FJ later confronts
Lorna June about the rumors. She confesses he’s not the first man she’s been
with (“I might have made a couple mistakes, but that’s all they
were—mistakes”), but she quickly silences Ferrell-Junior’s concerns, as well as
get him to again promise to invite her to an upcoming party at Blackoaks, with
a blowjob. Girl knows how to negotiate!
The day of the
party arrives, but the Garritys don’t. FJ had pleaded with Kathy to invite her
but learns later that Kathy “accidentally” lost the invitation, conveniently
finding it the morning after the party. A guilty FJ rides to town to apologize
to the Garritys. Though her mother is royally pissed about the snub, Lorna June
is forgiving and suggests she and Ferrell-Junior go for a ride out into the
country. FJ doesn’t understand why she still wants anything to do with him, but
it seems Lorna June finds him as hot as he finds her. Like they have on all their
previous buggy rides, the couple pulls off the road to bang. But, as we’ve seen
time and time again, the road to tragedy is paved with boners and bored
rednecks:
They were so
engrossed in each other they did not hear the rustling in the underbrush. It
was not until they reached a driving climax, almost struggling off the blanket
in their frenzy, and Ferrell fell away from her exhausted, that he saw Gil
Talmadge and the others standing just inside the small clearing.
“Get out of here,”
Ferrell said to her. “Get in that buggy and get the hell out of here. Dress on
the road. Anything. Get the hell out of here.”
Lorna June isn’t
quick enough. FJ is beaten and tied to a wheel of his buggy, powerless as Lorna
June is gang raped. In the aftermath, Lorna June marries homely bank clerk Luke
Scroggins and FJ, who heretofore has shown zero interest in his mother’s
Catholic faith, becomes a motherfuckin’ priest.
A
Steady Stream of Depravity, Debauchery and Dicking
I thought my days
of reading plantation porn were behind me. I had waded into the slaveploitation
cesspool in the latter half of the aughts, first with Kyle Onstott’s Mandingo, then its early
sequels, Drum and Master of Falconhurst. I was drawn to their
lurid content, the books being in questionable taste only increasing my
fascination. I was offended by the subject matter, sure, but then I should be.
Slavery is offensive. I take greater issue Gone with the Wind, which is,
to quote director and What
Went Wrong co-host Chris Winterbauer, “Civil War fan
fiction.” At least plantation porn doesn’t try to romanticize the antebellum
South.
It was when I
sampled some slaveploitation lit outside of the Falconhurst series that I began reconsidering my interest in the genre. Richard Tresillian’s The
Bondmaster (“Harder than Mandingo! Louder than Drum!”) was OK, even
if it’s basically a retelling of Mandingo, re-locating the story from
the American South to sugar plantations of the Caribbean, but its implying that
slavery wasn’t that bad so long as the slaves knew their place (a.k.a. the
DeSantis narrative) did not sit well with me. Worse was Dragonard, a book I learned
about through The Colbert Report, of all places. By virtue of focusing
his novel on its repugnant main character, who aspires to be a slave
master, author Rupert Gilchrist downplays the plight of the slaves. I also got the
distinct impression while reading it that Gilchrist relished every N-word he
typed. When I came to the end of Dragonard, I came to the end of my
exploration of planation porn.
But then I learned
“Ashley Carter” was yet another one of Harry Whittington’s pseudonyms. Whittington had been signed to continue writing the Falconhurst
series in the early 1970s after the death of Lance Horner, who’d been writing
the series after originator Onstott’s 1966 death. This accounts why
some “Ashley Carter” books from this period include the credit “A Lance Horner Novel,” though Master of Blackoaks has nothing to do with the
Falconhurst series.
Anyway, I sought
out Master of Blackoaks because of its author, not because of its genre,
and I was not disappointed. Whittington again proves he was good at his job, giving
readers what they wanted, no matter the genre. Still, this book’s not for everybody. If you do pick it up, maybe don’t break it out while waiting in line to see a performance at the Apollo (or anywhere in public, really).
Master of Blackoaks is
still trash, and Whittington cranks it up to 11, making it the best kind of
trash, the book delivering a steady stream of depravity, debauchery and
dicking. Whittington adds some redeemable touches, however. He makes sure that the plight of the slaves is known, and that while some, such as Jeanne d’Arc, are able to achieve some modest privileges (one of the perks of banging her master), they will always be denied the ultimate privilege of freedom, as Jeanne d’Arc discovers near the end of the novel. The Baynards may be
“good” slave owners (i.e., they prefer their field boss Bos not whip
their property, thank you), but Whittington doesn’t let readers forget they’re still slave owners all the same. The Baynards’ slaves are thought of as
part of the family—until money’s tight, and then they’re chattel that Ferrell
Baynard has no compunction about selling to a heartless slave trader like Eakins
Shivers.
As the book goes
along, Whittington focuses more on sex than servitude. In addition to detailing
Hunt Campbell’s night with a teen slave girl (yeah, that’s all kinds of wrong),
FJ’s romps with Lorna June and Styles blowing Moab, he devotes several chapters
to the field boss’s sexually frustrated wife Florine finding satisfaction with
a very eager Moab (he’s a slave, but he’s also a horny teenager). While these
chapters increase the novel’s prurient content, they add little to the
narrative and reduce Moab to little more than a walking hard-on long before
Styles tests the viscosity of his load.
The novel’s story
is told in an episodic fashion, making for a fractured narrative. It’s about Ferrell Baynard—no, wait, it’s about Hunt, the Yankee tutor. Nope, now it's about FJ and Lorna June. Hey, why don't we check back with Ferrell Baynard.... It’s not hard to follow, though, just a bitch to synopsize. More frustrating, Master of Blackoaks doesn’t
have a fully satisfying ending, leaving several storylines up in the air, with
an implied “to be continued,” likely because Whittington knew they would be. There
are three additional books in the Blackoaks series. I own two of them, meaning my
plantation porn reviews are…
To be continued…
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The fourth book in the Blackoaks series, A Farewell to Blackoaks,
was published in 1984 and is difficult to find today. The few
I found online had price tags of $70+, so, no, I won’t be reading it. |
