There are some great stories in whose form we identify an elevated piece of creative writing fundamentally as the sole conception of a writer's innovative mind, premeditated through a meticulous attention to craft and solemn devotion to her muse. Such stories do not only make readers reconsider their recognition of a well-tailored narrative as basically the triumph of talent, they also reveal who tells them and how they are told. This is a clear manifestation of a laborious but conscious attempt of the stories to reclaim their selfhood. There are also other authentic, and striking ways that stories make us aware of their promise and fervour – they decidedly lead by the hands into and through the beautifully decorated alleys of their plots, ensuring, because it is their elementary concern, that we do not only meet the characters – humans, animals and plants – but also perceive their smell, penetrate into their multi-layered psyche, explore the horizon of their thoughts, trace the militant forces that attempt to stifle their breath, and acknowledge their spontaneous revolutionary reckoning, even as we touch their scars. M. J. Simms-Maddox's book, Priscilla: Engaging in the Game of Politics, the prequel of the Priscilla trilogy, has managed very admirably to attain such elemental aesthetic heights.

It seems like autobiographical fiction, an intriguing and impressionistic political saga about the shenanigans of power. Simms-Maddox's novel bristles with action captured in a controlled touch of personal details. It could also be seen as a nostalgic story of many triumphs that astonishingly casts no shadow of darkness on the present but rises to a yarn whose dialectics examines the unbalanced human condition of American society, especially regarding race, colour, status and gender. This novel does not pull punches; it simply plucks the strings of power and looks at its underbelly in ways that helps to crystallise the enormous political hopes of black America as it reflects on the inconcealable prejudice of white America. It is a novel that looks into the falsity of America's claim of upholding human rights as a land of freedom. This book is emotionally charged, stylistically elliptic but a daringly omniscient tale about the Austins, through whose many generations bound by unfailing love and loyalty we are endeared to the power of the black family and its long memory of survival.