Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison continues her powerful examination of slavery’s evil legacy, a focus of her long career, by creating an intense and involving novel set in the Atlantic colonies between 1682 and 1690, when the slave trade from the Portuguese colonies in Africa was a lucrative business for many colonists. Here Morrison examines slavery from its earliest days, concentrating on its short term and long-term effects on society as a whole and the people, especially the women, who were it greatest victims. Even in New York, where most of this action takes place, slaves were owned, and property laws governing their ownership were respected. The primary speaker is Florens, a young black girl, aged sixteen at the outset of the novel, who tells the reader that her narrative is a confession, “full of curiosities,” and that she has committed a violent, bloody, once-in-a-lifetime crime which she will never repeat. This is a novel of epic scope, filled with complex philosophical, Biblical, and feminist issues and symbols.
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With Ironweed, William Kennedy completes his three novels of Depression-era Albany, wrapping up this study of time, place, and people with an emotionally gripping Pulitzer Prize-winner (1984) that focuses on those who call themselves “bums,” all of them living apart from society because their dreams have died. Here Francis Phelan, long-absent father of Billy Phelan, returns to Albany for the first time in twenty-two years. A former pro ballplayer, Francis lost his career when he lost part of a finger in a fight. He abandoned his wife Annie and his family when he accidentally dropped and killed his 13-day-old son Gerald, an act for which he still atones. A book so good it will leave you reeling, Ironweed tears at the heart without showing a trace of sentimentality, depicting hard lives lived by down-and-out people, most of whom still possess the redeeming virtues of the more saintly who live “normal” lives. Hard-edged, sometimes violent, and even cruel, it also reveals human kindness, sweetness, and love. (On my list of All-Time Favorites.)
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Casting a satiric eye on the publishing business, author Elise Blackwell shows the agonies and excitements of several young authors as each tries to find the magic formula for getting a book published, publicized, and sold to the public. Most have been successful with a first novel—at least to the extent that it has been published—and all now have second novels which they are trying to “place” with a publisher. Trying to support themselves with contributions to small literary journals while looking for the “right” connection for their next novel, they must negotiate literary minefields filled with agents, editors, publicists, manuscript “fixers,” sponsors of writing conferences, and influential bookstore chains, all of which affect their sense of mission and, ultimately, their self-worth. Delightful, thought-provoking, and full of rapier-sharp insights into the tenuous connections between writing and publishing, the novel is assured, perceptive, and often hilarious. The glimpses Blackwell provides of the strange, literary world she inhabits are unforgettable. (On my Favorites list for 2007)
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Focusing on the attempts of a group of young people, both white and Native American, to save some starving horses owned by the most powerful man in Twisted Tree, South Dakota, Meyers creates much more than a coming-of-age story here, delving into the essence of life itself, while keeping his style unpretentious and his plot lines simple. The stories the characters hear from their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles connect the various themes, unite the characters, and show the overlaps between cultures as all these young people grow and learn. The young characters learn that underlying all stories are dreams, some living and some destroyed, some emanating from higher powers and some coming from within. Featuring characters with whom the reader identifies, this full, richly developed novel stretches our imagination, challenges our thinking, and keeps us totally entertained every step of the way. (My favorite novel of 2005)
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Posted in Historical, Literary, US Regional on Jan 14th, 2011
When homesteader Leo Biedermann arrives in the plains of South Dakota in January,1882, during the most severe weather the area has seen in years, he immediately sets about building his house and barn, stocking the farm with cattle and horses, and planning his crops. The other homesteaders are astonished at his fortitude in the face of blizzards and bitterly cold weather, and though he is not friendly, they help him out when he needs machinery or a helping hand, and wish him well. When the first crops are harvested at the end of Biedermann’s first summer, Biedermann has managed to bring in the largest crop of all. Told through the journal of Gerhardt Praeger, a long-term settler with seven sons to help him on his farm, the narrative of Biedermann and his relationships with the other homesteaders unfolds. First published in 2007, this novel already feels like a classic, with its elegant and formal prose, its universal themes, its focus on a unique time and place, its broad vision of humanity with all its glories and faults, and its lack of artifice and sentimentality. Life is often harsh, but nowhere is life harsher than here in the lives of these Dakota homesteaders. (On my Favorites list for 2007)
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