Cane River

Author - Lalita Tademy ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Warner Books was reviewed on 11-Dec-2008.

Search ISBN:B00009ANY9 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Cane River Reference Book. Classifications : General Literature & Fiction Bargain Books Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books Popular Fiction Literature & Fiction Book Clubs Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books Mothers & Children Women's Fiction . Click the following link to view the cover of Cane River.

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1) Hardcover Book Cane River by Warner Books. I must confess that if this had not been a heavily reviewed book it would not have crossed by path, but I am so glad it did. It was really wonderful to read this book. When I read such a compelling story it pains me that people wonder why we ´dwell´ on the past so much. I have recommended this book to my friends. Coming from the West Indies, such a story is very common to us, its just that our books are normally academic and dont delve much into the personal lives of these formally enslaved persons and their descendants. Kudos to the author!¤

2) Hardcover Book Cane River by Warner Books. One of the best books I´ve ever read. I´ve shared it with many, but it will remain in my library.¤

3) Hardcover Book Cane River by Warner Books. 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!
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4) Hardcover Book Cane River by Warner Books. 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.¤

5) Hardcover Book Cane River by Warner Books. The story of her family history is very interesting. I enjoyed the book, the character development could have been better.¤

6) Hardcover Book Cane River by Warner Books. 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.¤

7) Hardcover Book Cane River by Warner Books. 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.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 8-Jan-2009, 04465305229780446530521, 840-350-040-630-370-940-Y9B-DIB-8

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