You are really lucky if you have caught this book. It is a real humdinger of a narrative, folowing the lives of 4 generations of women from the time of slavery in the American South, to the present day. You need the little stickers I have put in to work out who is related to who, but it is a wonderful book to work through. Some of those Negro slaves had the most beautiful names: Philomene, Narcisse, Fredieu, Palmire, Gerasime ...

Released on Thursday, May 13, 2004 at Womens Info Centre - Railway Cnt Arcade in Adelaide, South Australia Australia.

Picked up from the Australian General bookboox. How did it get in there?

I enjoyed this book. It is hard to get a bit of a picture of what it must have been like to live under a slave system, and Lalita Tademy has succeeded in this. She follows four generations of her forebears, starting in the time of slavery, going through the civil war and the years of segregation.
It is sad to see that racism was (is?) so ingrained in society that even people of mixed parentage feel better than black people.
This is not a true biography, as much of the detail has been filled in, but as a story based on real people's lives it is very strong.
It is best to read this book within a limited amount of time, otherwise it gets a bit hard to keep track of all characters and their relation to each other (especially later in the book with all the cousins etc). Some of these charcters are only just mentioned and the book would probably have benefitted from omission of these sort of details.
Overall a good book though.

RELEASE NOTES:

Just received. Looking forward to reading it.

Received back some time ago, to be sent on in Australian General Bookbag 5

Taken out of the Aussie General Bookbag.

Donation