The Slave Shack: The Book of Mumboo Conteh

The Book of Mumboo Conteh is a work of fiction. But it could have been a biography. It could have been the story of any one of the thousands of peaceful Africans who were brutally ripped from their homes and families and taken to colonial America to serve the lust and greed of their brutal masters.

Mumboo’s story is a story within a story. The main character in Slave Shack is Marcel Wilder. Marcel is a modern day construction worker who is injured on a job in Atlanta. Although Marcel Wilder and Mumboo Conteh lived in different centuries, their lives become bound together and inseparable.

There is just a bit of the supernatural here as Marcel is unknowingly guided by the spirit of Mumboo. Mumboo’s tale needs to be told to the world. But how can a modern day man tell the story of someone who lived two centuries ago?

Marcel finds something; something that changes his life and sends him on an adventure that changes his life forever.

Mumboo’s tale is a tale of brokenhearted romance and suffering. All he wanted was to be with his beloved Tanna but the brutality of the slavery mentality prohibited it. Although there can never be a true reparation for the suffering that Mumboo endured at the hands of his captors, perhaps in some way, Marcel can find peace for Mumboo’s still suffering spirit.

Excerpt from Marcel’s story:

“It seemed I was beginning to really understand slavery. I guess I always knew that slavery was a terrible thing but I had never given it such deep soul-searching thought. It was having an effect on me. I was beginning to see and understand the true history of the United States. I was becoming more alienated from it. I had always felt I was a part of it but I was beginning to feel removed from it. It was my very own ancestors that were probably whipped, hung or burned alive at some point. I was thinking of all those pictures they showed us in school about the founding fathers. But I wondered what kind of people they really were. Most of them owned slaves but the schoolbooks didn’t really go into any detail about that. They may have been good organizers and they had good ideas about freedom and liberty. But those freedoms did not apply to Africans who were brutally kidnapped and taken to America to become human farm animals.”

Excerpt from Marcel’s story:

“What kind of people were the founding fathers really, I wondered. They were themselves barbarians for supporting and participating in the slave system. The ones that did not own slaves did very little to abolish the barbaric system of slavery. They were not good people. They were not Christians. They were well-dressed savages, I thought. I was indeed becoming a different person. The truth was smacking me in the face and I was not turning away.”

Excerpt from Marcel’s story:

“I don’t think it is something anyone can fully understand or feel until they set foot on the continent of Africa. Here it is, almost unchanged, one of the only continents where it’s people did not go forth to conquer and pillage other races. They were content to stay here in peace until the pink savages came.”