Take the Long Way Home
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
From a cloistered 1950s Mississippi town founded by freed slaves to the striking diversity of Paris and Rome in the 1960s and 70s, through Wall Street’s glittering Roaring 80s to the present day, this sweeping, unforgettably moving novel from the national bestselling author chronicles one southern Black girl’s remarkable journey through some of history’s most turbulent decades—and the four men who challenge her to fight for happiness.
Freedom fighter, brilliant businessperson, devoted wife, master of languages, and ultimately, savior of a European dynasty. Claudia Patterson would become all of these—spurred on by the fiercely powerful loves and losses along the way . . .
Denny Clark. An abused thirteen-year-old white boy whose life twelve-year-old Claudia saves—complicating her own life for years to come.
Robert Moore. A young Black lawyer who becomes Claudia’s beloved husband and partner on the explosive front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. Amid the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, Claudia has a shocking personal encounter—with unimaginable consequences.
Ashley Booth. A Wall Street executive who brings the glamour of New York alive for the now-widowed Claudia, introducing her to an elite circle of Black peers. But their long yet uncommitted romance leads Claudia to move on—to an overseas assignment at an Italian bank.
Giancarlo Pasquale Fortenza. An Italian automobile industrialist, once enamored of a young Claudia—handsome, worldly, and twelve years her senior. A man with whom Claudia reconnects, bringing her life full circle in the boldest, bravest, and most unexpected ways . . .
Rich with history and timeless emotion, here is an epic tale of rising through poverty, racism, and heartbreak—and the awesome role of our most significant relationships throughout our lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the bracing if aimless latest from Alers (Along the Shore), a Black woman looks back on her origins in the Jim Crow South and the new lives she's built in New York City and Italy. At age 12 in 1952, Claudia Patterson avoids the racist white residents of her sharply segregated Mississippi town, a situation Alers paints in fraught terms, such as an episode involving Claudia rescuing a white boy who was beaten by his father. A later section set in the late 1950s and early '60s portrays Claudia's courtship and marriage to Robert Moore, a Black attorney working to support the civil rights movement. After Robert dies in 1963 under suspicious circumstances, Claudia begins a new life in New York City, where in 1968 she meets Ashley Booth, a man who works on Wall Street and invites her into Black upper-class society. A final section, beginning later that year, involves Claudia's further reinvention in Italy. Although Alers ably portrays her characters' enthusiasm and sacrifices for the cause of racial equality, this much material would have benefited from a unifying plot. Readers will lose the thread.
