What the Parrot Saw

by Darlene Marshall

February 26, 2019 · Eve D. Ackerman

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What the Parrot Saw is about a biracial female pirate who enlists the help of a white Englishman in her efforts to help enslaved people escape from Florida to the Bahamas in 1839. In the process she takes him to a beach and teaches him how to fight with knives while a parrot yells at him. You know full well that you are going to buy this and I can tell you that you won’t be sorry. For the, I dunno, three people who might possibly be saying, “Well…I dunno…” this review is for you.

Our story begins with notorious pirate Mattie St. Armand who sort of rescues and sort of kidnaps a nice, naive young man named Oliver. Oliver helps the cook and is the cabin boy and basically learns how to not fall overboard. Oliver also realizes that Mattie is a woman, and that this is an open secret on the ship.

Mattie is involved in smuggling slaves out of Florida. She needs a White man for several stages of the operation, and it has to be someone who can credibly pass for upper class, which rules out her crew. Her plan is for Oliver to have a secret identity, but Oliver points out that his actual identity works even better. Oliver is the son of a prosperous mill owning family in England. While slavery is illegal in England, the mills depend on American slavery for cheap cotton, and Oliver, who opposes slavery, has a personal interest in helping Mattie. Oliver and Mattie collaborate on rescuing slaves at sea and on land.

There are so many things I liked about this. The bond between Mattie and Oliver is so well-developed – truly this is one of my favorite romantic literary relationships. It plays with gender roles in multiple, affectionate ways, it’s sex-positive, it’s a relationship in which both people are equal in their intelligence and competence and both people respect each other for this (he’s a better shot with guns, she’s much better at knives), and they have complementary temperaments. Their chemistry is off the charts and they also are good friends and companions. The barriers to their relationship are always realistic and so is their resolution. I especially love that Mattie is more kick-ass and Oliver is more intellectual – a mix of skills that not only flips the usual gender roles but which also proves crucial to the ending.

Readers should be aware that this book is not all about sparring on the beach. Once Mattie and Oliver get to Nassau County, Florida Territory, things get really, really really awful and ugly and horrible for Oliver for a while. This part of the story is based on the experiences of a real-life abolitionist named Jonathan Walker. Another character (Daniel Green) who has a much happier time in the book is based off of the real life sailor William Brown. Don’t Google either one until after you read the book because of spoilers. The book does a great job of being idealistic and realistic at the same time, as the need for the total abolition of slavery, and the complications thereof, looms over Mattie’s efforts to rescue a few slaves at a time.

Readers should also know that there are, in Oliver’s storyline, some “white savior” elements. This is largely offset by the fact that Mattie, a woman of color, drives the plot of both the book and the smuggling operation and that she is the one who…

There are multiple people of color in supporting roles, both free and otherwise, with their own personalities and backgrounds and goals. While their roles are supporting, the characters are not voiceless and they are presented as having agency.

There’s so much serious content in this book to unpack – it’s thoughtful and it steadfastly avoids easy answers. Yet it’s also fun and entertaining and sexy. I enjoyed this book on many levels at once. It’s a lovely read that does not dismiss a difficult subject. And, as I believe I mentioned, there’s a parrot. What’s not to like?