This is not a historical novel. This is a docudrama in book form. Philippine traces the adventurous life of an 18th century free coloured family in Grenada, Carriacou and Trinidad-with excursions into France, England and, aboard a French corsair raider, all over the Atlantic Ocean.
This, Book First of the trilogy that is Philippine, captures the lives of the "Children of the Sun" of Jeanette, Free Negro Woman of Grenada, and her French husband Honore Philip. In it, Gerard Besson places the various members of the Philip family sharply etched against the historical backdrop of the Revolutionary Atlantic, when the people of the Western World began to strain against the shackles of monarchy and servitude and the revolutions of France and South and North America, including Haiti and Grenada, uprooted the social order.
We explore the lives and characters of each of Jeanette and Honore's children based on whichever historical evidence we have-e.g. for Judith, there is an abundance of record that demonstrates her success as a planter and business woman, as opposed to Nicolas-Regis, where all we have is his will and wove a story around him with fiction and leaving the rest to the reader's imagination. Two other sons, Joachim and Honore fils, gave their lives in the Fedon revolution; both were convicted and hanged for their principles in their attempt of an armed fight for the rights of the Free Blacks and People of Colour.
Philippine demonstrates how a mixed-race, slave-owning family was able to navigate those turbulent times so successfully, especially as it regards the upward mobility of the mulatto woman: all three daughters of Jeanette's marry white men, but the sons marry black or coloured women.
For the interested reader, the historical documents were placed on Gerard Besson's blog "Caribbean History Archives" (see QR code).
