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''A Million Nightingales'' is a historical novel by writer Susan Straight published in 2006. The novel is about Moinette Antoine, a beautiful and self-educated slave of mixed race living in Louisiana in the early to mid-19th century. Moinette narrates her own story from age 14 when she is taken from her mother to the end of her life when she has become a free woman and business owner. The first-person narration is done in a stream of consciousness style that focuses on Moinette's insightful thoughts and impressions of the strange and brutal world around her. Major themes include the legacy of slavery in America, women as property, and mother-daughter relationships. It is the first novel in a set of three companion novels known as the Rio Seco trilogy. The other books in the trilogy are ''Take One Candle Light a Room'' (2010) and ''Between Heaven and Here'' (2012). The novel was almost universally praised by critics. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction. ==Development history== The catalyst for the author, Susan Straight, to write ''A Million Nightingales'' was a story told to her by an African American neighbor. He told her that the reason why he had moved from Louisiana to Riverside, California (Straight's hometown) in 1953 was to protect his young, beautiful daughter from an older white man who was going "to come and get her." For the next 10 years, Straight thought about how her own three daughters – all young, beautiful, and mixed-race – would have fared growing up in a different time.〔Bates, K. (Interviewer) & Straight, S. (Interviewee). (2006, August 2). (Susan Straight: 'A Million Nightingales' [Interview transcript] ). Los Angeles: National Public Radio. Retrieved 2014-05-17.〕 "I looked at all three of them and thought, 'If they'd been born in 1800 Louisiana, people would have had one thing in mind. One thing,' " Straight said. "Can you imagine what their lives would have been like, with their looks and their brains?"〔O'Connor, A. (2006, April 17). (Can You Imagine? Novelist Susan Straight explores the life her daughters would have led under slavery ). ''Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved 2014-05-17. 〕 To research the novel, Straight traveled to Louisiana's rural Plaquemines Parish. She stayed in Woodland Plantation, which used slave labor in the past. "It was very creepy," Straight said. "I stayed up all night writing. I wrote a lot of the novel by hand. I could see the slave cabin from my window, and the idea that someone could look at that house all the time was amazing."〔 She also read dozens of books about Louisiana, French trappers and explorers, the treatment of slaves, and other documents about the early 1800s. Details she found in court documents were incorporated into Moinette's story.〔Lythgoe, D. (2006, April 16). 'Million' Author Calls Writers Eavesdroppers. ''Deseret News''.〕 For example, in 2001, she read an account of a woman named Manon, a free woman of color who traded a slave she owned to buy her own son because he could not be legally freed until he was 21 years old. Straight became obsessed with the story, "I couldn't show (daughter ) the piece of paper in my desk, the copy of the sale of Manon. I could only write about a woman like her with a child I imagine who looked like mine."〔Straight, S. (2006 August 4). (Writing A Million Nightingales on History ). ''All Things Considered''. Washington, D.C.: National Public Radio. Retrieved 2014-05-18. 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「A Million Nightingales」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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