Cane River
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4.4 • 269 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club Pick-the unique and deeply moving saga of four generations of African-American women whose journey from slavery to freedom begins on a Creole plantation in Louisiana.
Beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave owned by a Creole family, Lalita Tademy chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms. They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South. As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family.
There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage... her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promise-and heartbreak-of freedom... Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independence... and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future.
Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Cane River presents a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Cane River isn’t just the kind of novel you tell your friends about. It’s the kind of novel you buy for your friends so you can talk about it. Lalita Tademy’s sweeping, multigenerational story is absolutely breathtaking—not only because it filled us with inspiration, but because it’s based in fact. Tademy draws from the life stories of her own family, portraying the experiences of four generations of exceptional women, from enslavement on a Louisiana plantation to the everyday struggles of Black people in the Jim Crow South. By the time we got to the story of Emily, a determined young woman struggling to improve her family’s position during an age of miscegenation laws and segregation, we’d become totally enraptured by Tademy’s beautiful portrait of the gifts passed down from one woman to another—and the family bonds that endure despite the horrors of rape, separation, and war. The unforgettable heroines of Cane River filled us with hope and awe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like the river of its title, Tademy's saga of strong-willed black women flows from one generation to the next, from slavery to freedom. Elisabeth is a slave on a Creole plantation, as is her daughter, Suzette. The family, based on Tademy's own ancestors, wins freedom after the Civil War, but Suzette's daughter, Philomene, must struggle to keep her family together and to achieve financial independence. The melodious, expressive voices of narrators Belafonte and Payton are a pleasure to listen to, while Moore's tougher, grittier tone conveys the hardships faced by the family. However, Belafonte and Payton sometimes ignore vocal directions provided by the novel. For example, Payton reads one passage in a whisper even though the text says "in her excitement, Philomene's voice rose... louder and louder." The complex, multigenerational tale suffers somewhat in abridgment: at times the narrative too abruptly jumps ahead by decades and some emotional situations are given short shrift, as when Philomene discovers that her daughter Bette, whom she was told died as a baby nearly 20 years earlier, is actually alive and living nearby. Still, the audio succeeds in evoking the struggles of black women to provide better lives for their children despite all odds. Simultaneous release with the Warner hardcover(Forecasts, Mar. 12).
Customer Reviews
Cane River
Wonderfully written!
GREAT BOOK
This was such wonderful reading. My sister lives outside of Colfax, LA and knows much of the history. The treatment and the clear separation only because of color has always been appalling to me. My sister took me to the plantations and several places mentioned in this book and I watched a interview with Lolita Tademy and it made this book seem even more real. So much sadness in the book but many of the elders kept their spirits up with keeping family close and their belief in God. It’s a great history, story and eye opener.
Outstanding
I enjoyed reading this book because it is a great history lesson, the details and understanding of the people are so real. An entertaining and easy to read black history listen of how the strength and love of family is the cornerstone to surviving and overcoming the wrongs that were done to our people. Thank you for sharing your family history because it is all our history.