by Portia Tewogbade ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 25, 2018
Engaging, poignant, and historically informative.
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Tewogbade’s (During a Dry Season, 2013) novel portrays a turbulent African-American family living in Atlanta during the deadly riots of 1906.
Thirty-eight years after ratification of the 14th Amendment, which officially freed the slaves, race riots broke out in Atlanta. Stirred up by stories in white-owned newspapers of alleged rapes of white women by black men, armed white gangs took to the streets, burning black-owned homes and businesses, raping and beating black women, and lynching black men. This novel begins nearly two weeks before the riots. Queen Isabella Redmond, the matriarch of an African-American Georgia family, is in her youngest daughter Ruby Norris’ dirt-floor house, acting as midwife during the birth of the 17-year-old’s first baby. Ruby’s husband, Lee Norris, is currently in jail, working a chain gang, after being arrested for “so-called reckless eyeballing.” Isabella gasps when she sees that her new grandchild’s skin is white, and she feels that Ruby has disgraced the family. Her oldest daughter, Beatrice, lives across town in the neighborhood of Brownsville with her husband, JC, a teacher. They and Isabella’s son, Fat, are the most prosperous members of the family. The fourth sibling, Mary Alice, returns to the city unexpectedly after having disappeared seven years ago; the light-skinned woman had been “passing” as white and living in New York City until her fiance tried to strangle her. But shortly after she arrives in Atlanta, the street violence begins. In this novel, Tewogbade depicts the atrocities of the rioting in graphic detail, as when she describes the white mobs who “paraded severed ears, fingers, and toes through the streets, and hung the hats of lynched bodies on lamp poles.” In this way, she effectively brings across the unspeakable horror of a real-life event. However, the soul of the novel is to be found in the larger family drama—tales of sibling rivalries and vividly portrayed daily struggles against poverty and racial oppression. The characters are shown to have indomitable spirits and a devotion to family despite the disparate paths that they take. The skillful prose is heavy on dialogue, which will keep readers in the moment.
Engaging, poignant, and historically informative.Pub Date: May 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73221-570-2
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Kaduna River Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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