Add to the list of things I did not know: Before the American Civil War, some black people owned slaves. It was not common, but it was legal, and it happened.

Edward P. Jones's 2003 novel "The Known World" tells the story of Henry Townsend, a former slave whose father was able to purchase his freedom. Henry used his freedom to buy a tobacco plantation and purchase thirty slaves of his own.

The story begins with Henry's untimely death as his widow tries to maintain order on the plantation.

A plethora of subplots and characters often made keeping everyone's story straight challenging. I sometimes found it necessary to flip back to remember the backstory of the current chapter's main character. In addition, Jones presents a non-linear narrative, frequently stepping away from a scene to reveal a character's fate decades later or to describe a present-day historian researching the story's events. Despite these difficulties, Jones builds and evolves his characters well. They are complex - none are purely good or purely evil, instead reacting to the circumstances in which they find themselves.

Jones explores the social structure of society, showing a clear hierarchy in antebellum America among whites, mixed-race people, freed blacks, and slaves. The few rights the law afforded blacks were sometimes not enough. In one scene, a white man kidnaps a free black man and sells him back into slavery.

Henry Townsend is a fictional character, as is Manchester, the county where the action takes place, but the author makes them feel real. He brings to the fore the doomed institution of slavery and the complex personal and societal issues of those involved.

"The Known World" shed light on what was an unknown world to me.