(Larger Image)
|
Cane River
by Lalita Tademy
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Warner Books (2001-06-20)
ISBN: 0446530522
EAN: 9780446530521
Dewey Decimal #: 813.6
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 418 pages
Edition: 4th
Release Date: 2001-06-20
SKU: 7041-Cane
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: Excellent book with straight tight spine and clean unmarked pages.
|
Editorial Reviews
|
Product Description
Lalita Tademy was a successful vice president at Sun Microsystems when she began what became an obsessive two-year search to uncover the story of her family's roots. It was a personal odyssey that took her back to the early l800s and a small rural community on Louisiana's Cane River. There, digging through official records, conducting interviews, and relying on the expertise of professional genealogists, Tademy was able to bring to vivid life four remarkable women--her great, great, great, great grandmother Elisabeth; her great, great, great grandmother Suzette; her great, great grandmother Philomene; and her great-grandmother Emily. Beginning in slavery, sweeping through the Civil War, and bringing us into the pre-Civil Rights South, we follow the struggles of these four women through extraordinary hardships as they learn to empower themselves and, despite overwhelming pressures, get their due and preserve their heritage. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this woman's Roots presents a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.
|
Amazon.com Review
Lalita Tademy's riveting family saga chronicles four generations of women born into slavery along the Cane River in Louisiana. It is also a tale about the blurring of racial boundaries: great-grandmother Elisabeth notices an unmistakable "bleaching of the line" as first her daughter Suzette, then her granddaughter Philomene, and finally her great-granddaughter Emily choose (or are forcibly persuaded) to bear the illegitimate offspring of the area's white French planters. In many cases these children are loved by their fathers, and their paternity is widely acknowledged. However, neither state law nor local custom allows them to inherit wealth or property, a fact that gives Cane River much of its narrative drive. The author makes it clear exactly where these prohibitions came from. Plantation society was rigidly hierarchical, after all, particularly on the heels of the Civil War and the economic hardships that came with Reconstruction. The only permissible path upward for hard-working, ambitious African Americans was indirect. A meteoric rise, or too obvious an appearance of prosperity, would be swiftly punished. To enable the slow but steady advance of their clan, the black women of Cane River plot, plead, deceive, and manipulate their way through history, extracting crucial gifts of money and property along the way. In the wake of a visit from the 1880 census taker, the aged Elisabeth reflects on how far they had come. When the census taker looked at them, he saw colored first, asking questions like single or married, trying to introduce shame where there was none. He took what he saw and foolishly put those things down on a list for others to study. Could he even understand the pride in being able to say that Emily could read and write? They could ask whatever they wanted, but what he should have been marking in the book was family, and landholder, and educated, each generation gathering momentum, adding something special to the brew. In her introduction, Tademy explains that as a young woman, she failed to appreciate the love and reverence with which her mother and her four uncles spoke of their lively Grandma 'Tite (short for "Mademoiselle Petite"). She resented her great-grandmother's skin-color biases, which were as much a part of Tademy's memory as were her great-grandmother's trademark dance moves. But the old stories haunted the author, and armed with a couple of pages of history compiled by a distant Louisiana cousin, she began to piece together a genealogy. The result? Tademy eventually left her position as vice president of a Fortune 500 company and set to work on Cane River, in which she has deftly and movingly reconstructed the world of her ancestors. --Regina Marler
|
Customer Reviews
|
MUST READ
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-06-14
I fell in love with this book. It was absolutely amazing. Everything about it was well written. I highly recommend this one. This is one of my favorites of all time.
|
|
What a great story!
Rating  (4)
Date: 2010-04-26
Wow. What a powerful story of hope! I am so glad that our book club picked Cane River this month. I loved reading about the different generations of African American women during the times of slavery and pre-civil rights. At first, I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book because it started off a bit slow, but it picked up pace quickly. The only complaint is that I wish we could have had read some more points of view throughout the book. That being said, this is a wonderful fictional account of strong women and I would recommend that every woman read this book. This is definitely a book I will be rereading from time to time.
|
|
Awesome
Rating (5)
Date: 2010-03-25
I read all 517 pages in four days. I couldn't put it down. It was easy to transport myself to this era while reading this novel. GREAT BOOK!!
|
|
Cane River / Loved it
Rating (5)
Date: 2010-02-11
Amazon
I received my book on time. However I was disappointed the way the book looked when I got it in the mail. The book was old and torn apart from the binding. I needed this book to read along with my Book Club, so I did not send it back. It was not worth the money I paid.
Sincerely
Denise Keys
|
|
good shape
Rating (4)
Date: 2010-02-08
The book took longer to come than I expected but it was in good shape and I thoroughly enjoyed the read.
|
|
|
|
|