Historical Fiction Based on the Life of Dred Scott

A Novel by Mary E. Neighbour

Who was Dred Scott, other than one of America's most famous slaves? History cannot answer that question because no one bothered to record even the most basic details about the man at the center of one of the country's most pivotal Supreme Court rulings—one that pitched the United States into civil war.

Speak Right On, a work of historical fiction, depicts Dred Scott as an orphaned, destitute, illiterate slave whose strength of character, artful storytelling, and keen insights protect his family and result in ultimate victory. He is man who journeys to define his own truth, who cries out to share his story with all who will listen. That is his freedom, and he requires no court to help him find it.

Praise and Endorsements

Publishers Weekly

… a legal dispute Neighbour treats with conscientious detail.

Booklist

This novel offers a fictionalized account of what Scott’s life might have been like, and in essence what the lives of many slaves might have been like, from the Middle Passage through the beginning of the national conflict over slavery…. Neighbour deftly draws a life leading to the legal challenge…. This is an absorbing look at the relationships-voluntary and involuntary-as well as the nuances of slavery that provoke human emotions from nobility and loyalty to greed and selfishness.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (also printed in Armchair Interviews)

Speak Right On takes the reader on an incredible journey of dignity and accomplishment.… Neighbour fills in the gaps of Dred's life.… Neighbour uses the art of storytelling as a framing device for Scott's life. It works well…. the attention to language and place makes the story come alive.… I give this a you-gotta-read-this nod. It's a fine piece of fiction from a slave's point of view that is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye.…

London Socialist Review

… Neighbour builds a poignant, nuanced narrative around the life of Dred Scott … Neighbour illuminates how slavery worked its way into every corner of human relations, constricting the lives of all those it touched…. [a] powerful rendering of the precariousness of black life in a country committed to slavery.…

London Financial Times

… artfully composed … Scott’s name is familiar to all American high school students. But what, the novelist asks, lies behind the name? … Neighbour … pulls off her portrait of a good, simple, unassuming man who will … be forever famous.

Kathryn Atwood, Book Pleasures

… Neighbour has sought to flesh out a portrait of the man behind the ruling and in the process has created a powerfully moving portrayal of the psychology of slavery…. the immorality of slavery wasn't about the quality of life,  it was about the basic human craving for freedom and it is this point that Neighbour brilliantly illustrates again and again - in often breathtakingly beautiful prose…. A work of such power—at once disturbing and uplifting—that even if you are familiar with the story's outcome, you absolutely won't be able to put it down.

Sue Vogan, Book Pleasures

If there ever was a book that explained what it was like to be torn from your birth land, shipped as if you were a piece of lumber and dropped into an unknown world, Mary Neighbour's novel is at the top of the reading list.… Neighbour captures details that enable the reader to feel the emotions, hear the whip crack, and touch history as if you were there…. The tale will … open your eyes and perhaps offer a better understanding of what slavery was really like.…