Possession

PROPERTY By Valerie Martin Doubleday. 196 pp. $23.95 Valerie Martin's compelling new novel about the antebellum South describes the lurid, slippery power of the slavemaster over the slave, and how that authority debases and deranges not only the captive men and women but also the master himself. Or rather, herself. For Property delves into the bloody and violent negotiations between a Southern white mistress and her desperate human "possessions." Manon, Martin's pretty yet disaffected protagonist, is married to the beastly Mr. Gaudet. This gentleman farmer owns a plantation north of New Orlea...