Scan barcode
timhering's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
3.0
usernamemustbeunique's review
4.0
I would recommend this book to Paule Marshall fans as well as anyone who enjoys stories of personal discovery that include vivid imagery and well-developed characters.
a_r_e_l_i_c's review
4.0
23 shower of scented dust
37 cool resinous smell of the pines
43 soap & asafetida
149 curdled milk & stale Johnson’s baby powder
150 staleness of flesh in slept-in clothes
166 seldom worn clothes & yeasty breath
190 blood
197 scented with mother’s cologne
215 slight mustiness of closed unused rooms
221 faint cool smell of limes on the air
37 cool resinous smell of the pines
43 soap & asafetida
149 curdled milk & stale Johnson’s baby powder
150 staleness of flesh in slept-in clothes
166 seldom worn clothes & yeasty breath
190 blood
197 scented with mother’s cologne
215 slight mustiness of closed unused rooms
221 faint cool smell of limes on the air
adambwriter's review
3.0
Very interesting - echoes of Alice Walker (even more interesting that this book and Walker's The Color Purple wer published within a year of each other). Full review to come at roofbeamreader.com
lindseyzank's review
4.0
Marshall thoroughly and ingeniously explores the damaging effects of pursuing the capitalist-driven American dream as an African American. The novel follows Avey Johnson in the 1970s as she journeys to the Caribbean aboard a cruise ship only to be overcome by vivid dreams of her great aunt Cuney and her time as a child visiting her on Tatem Island, home to Ibo Landing, where the myth of the flying African (or, in this case, slaves who walked on water back to Africa) and the Ring Shout still persist. Marshall inventively weaves together elements of the African diaspora (Vodou traditions and practices, dances, communal and cultural rituals, and the slave trade) to chart Avey’s journey reconnecting with her African roots. After having denied her Black identity and lineage for years, Avey has become numb, dulled, and she has internalized racist rhetoric and ideology. Her surrogate, though temporary, family in the Caribbean (led by Lebert Joseph, who serves as a Papa Legba figure in Avey's life) affords her the opportunity to reject racist, capitalist paradigms and replace them with richly rendered African and post-slave trade syncretic belief systems that honor the body, the soul, and one’s connection to the ancestors. While Marshall’s writing is not, on a sentence by sentence level, the most lyrical or mesmerizing prose out there, the way she consistently and intelligently comments on the lingering effects of slavery and its racist underpinnings is impressive. She very masterfully navigates between the past and the present, eventually merging Avey's memories with her current experiences as a means to show how her present is determined by her past. The novel ends on a hopeful note, one imbued with African diasporic consciousness and the desire to both preserve and expand it. She’s a voice in African American and Caribbean fiction who isn’t given enough recognition, and more people should read her work.
bookgardendc's review against another edition
4.0
What a beautiful book about rediscovering who you are - your history, your people, the place you come from, and all those little moments in life.