--- description: Find out why "Slaveroad" is on TIME's list of the must-read books of the year. title: 'Slaveroad' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2024 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbf3205bc19e72370/698a8d0ab3fce3667f0d280a/Slaveroad-John-Edgar-Wideman.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Nov 13, 2024 # Slaveroad by [Shannon Carlin](/author/shannon-carlin/) ## Shannon Carlin Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Carlin is a contributor for TIME.  John Edgar Wideman’s genre-bending autobiography chronicles not only his life, but also those of African men and women who made their way to the U.S. through the trans–Atlantic slave trade. A poignant mix of memoir, autofiction, history, and poetry, _Slaveroad_ begins by tracing the journeys of people like William Henry Sheppard, a descendant of enslaved Virginians who returned to Africa in 1890 to become one of the first African Americans to work as a missionary for the Presbyterian Church. Sheppard is one of many whose lives intersected with the author’s own along the “slaveroad,” a term Wideman coined for the ocean that carried the enslaved from Africa to the U.S., a metaphorical bridge between past and present generations of freedmen and women. The parallels become evidently clear in a later chapter in which Wideman writes unsparingly of his son’s incarceration for a 1986 murder. Somber and searching, _Slaveroad_ is an impassioned meditation on slavery’s enduring effects. **Buy Now:** _Slaveroad_ on [Bookshop](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9781668057216 "undefined") | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/4fzU5Mh "undefined") | [Barnes & Noble](https://fave.co/3NRHp7M "undefined") These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2024/7172763/slaveroad/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2024/7172763/slaveroad/"},"headline":"Slaveroad","datePublished":"2024-11-13T13:23:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:43:15.884Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2024/7172763/slaveroad/","keywords":["Books","E-Commerce","list","franchise"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbf3205bc19e72370/698a8d0ab3fce3667f0d280a/Slaveroad-John-Edgar-Wideman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Shannon Carlin","jobTitle":"Carlin is a contributor for TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/shannon-carlin/"}],"creator":"Shannon Carlin","articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbf3205bc19e72370/698a8d0ab3fce3667f0d280a/Slaveroad-John-Edgar-Wideman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2024/7172763/slaveroad/","name":"Slaveroad"}}]}] ```