by Lalita Tademy
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Product Description
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
Amazon.com
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
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Cane River, 2008-09-01
One of the best books I've ever read. I've shared it with many, but it will remain in my library.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Powerful. , 2008-07-18
The depth, insight, and experience lacking in most books are found here. As an African-American woman, Lalita Tademy has the life experience that the majority lacks. Genuine empathy and insight is very hard to come by, but Tademy has it, and makes it come alive in her female ancestors. I actually felt depressed when I finished this book because I wanted to continue tagging along with her characters. Thank you for this amazing gift. BRAVO!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Great lesson in history and geneology, 2008-05-25
I am another reader, leery of "Oprah Books". I was pleasantly surprised with this one. This book was a fascinating history lesson for me! The project Lalita took on is something a lot of people have been doing lately especially with the help of the internet. Researching genelogy has always intrigued me. Lalita took this one step further and filled in the gaps of her research with a fictional story that was so good, it was hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction. Lalita began with Elisabeth who was born around the turn of the 19th century and progressed forward with Suzette, Philomene and Emily. Each woman felt the hardships of life as a slave in Louisiana but they also found a way to get what they needed to live as well as they could during their oppression. Tademy includes pictures, letters, bills of sale in her book that help give her people a voice to share their lives with us. Despite all the prejudices and oppression these women had to deal with, they still came through their hardships with their heads held high. I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Good Book, 2008-05-14
The story of her family history is very interesting. I enjoyed the book, the character development could have been better.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Couldn't put it down, 2008-04-14
I purchased this book on a Friday and finished reading it on Sunday afternoon. I couldn't put it down. I banned my kids from my room and soaked in the tub for 2 hours just so that I could get some uninterrupted "me" time. This story was wonderfully told and had my imagination fired up. I felt like I was there. I'm looking forward to reading Red River.
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