Using these facts as a trellis, Miles tries to coax out Tubman’s personality ... Toward the end of Night Flyer, Miles admits to struggling with her project — trying to get closer to someone who left such a "murky paper trail." She derides the as-told-to biographies, explaining that the white women who wrote them, despite their good intentions, "could not have told Tubman’s story with the fullness, clarity and philosophical depth that Tubman would have, had she written it herself." The claim is banal in one sense, and unsupported in another. Miles tells us that Tubman always took care not to expose "her own private feelings"; there’s little reason to think that she would have wanted to reveal more of herself to a hungry public.
By elucidating Tubman’s Christian faith and close relationship with her natural environs, Miles succeeds in bringing Tubman’s larger-than-life "magical" persona back down to earth and situate her as a woman of her time ... Miles’s Night Flyer adds needed texture to Tubman’s historical caricature, and a big part of its charm is in leaving open the question of whether Brodess’s death was the will of God or the fulfillment of a curse.
Miles places Tubman in an important Black faith continuum ... There will always be gaps in Tubman's biography. To Miles, this is no impediment ... More than many, this book finds beauty in history's unanswerable questions.
The lack of writings left by Tubman gives rise to some speculation throughout, or at least educated guesses ... Night Flyer reminds readers that even the most unlikely of persons can impact their worlds, for good or evil. With Harriet Tubman, it was undoubtedly for the good.
In her trademark deeply researched, thoughtful and exquisite prose, Miles successfully avoids popular depictions of Tubman as a superwoman ... Miles also brings to life the haunting sights, sounds and dark, bewildering moments that Tubman experienced as she led herself and others to safety through the night wilderness.
Miles’ thoughtful engagement with Tubman’s contemporaries allows her to place the icon within a proud lineage of Black female mystics and preachers. Bridging theology, environmental writing, and history, Miles leaves readers with a truly unique analysis of how Tubman positioned herself within the world.
The author shades Tubman’s early life with rich details about the distinct shape of slavery and the labor market in Maryland ... The author’s painstaking work proves the necessity of her task to reconfigure the reductive historical canon surrounding Tubman, offering accessible inspiration to future actors and leaders of liberation and resistance in a world still marked by racist and sexist oppression.
