Dorothy West (1)Reviews
Author of The Wedding
For other authors named Dorothy West, see the disambiguation page.
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Reviews
The Living is Easy by Dorothy West
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samba7 | 4 other reviews | Jan 1, 2024 | Almost entirely a genealogy, with a tiny bit of plot thrown in for justification. And that plot, by the way, was completely implausible.
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blueskygreentrees | 16 other reviews | Jul 30, 2023 | Shelby Coles is getting married to a white man - a jazz musician. The Coles family lives on Martha's Vinyard in an area known as the Oval which is the home to the upper class Black families. Shelby's sister, Liz, is married with a child to a very dark Black man and the grandmother Gran has difficulty loving the child. The amount of darkness is an on-going stress with both sides of this family. The novel goes back to tell the stories of the great grandparents who were slaves and products of the white owner and the black slave. Each generation struggles with loving or diminishing their skin color. Shelby is actually a blonde and when she gets lost as a child, the police and neighborhood are looking for a white girl.
Race is really a central theme of this book, and not just race, but skin color. Older generations wanting to be white, the younger generations embracing their color. The only character I really had a hard time understanding is Lute, a social-climbing black man with three girls from three different mothers. He wants to marry Shelby because of her family. Interesting book.
Race is really a central theme of this book, and not just race, but skin color. Older generations wanting to be white, the younger generations embracing their color. The only character I really had a hard time understanding is Lute, a social-climbing black man with three girls from three different mothers. He wants to marry Shelby because of her family. Interesting book.
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maryreinert | 16 other reviews | Jun 27, 2023 | Dorothy West is a master of character development. Every member of the Martha's Vineyard Oval community is meticulously realized by their actions and reactions to events surrounding them and by the subservient relationships they keep: black and white, man and wife, neighbor and stranger, parent and child, landlord and tenant. Strangely enough, there is harmony in the contrasts.
It is the wedding of beautiful Shelby Coles. Her engagement to a white jazz musician from New York City has her family in turmoil. Lute McNeil would like nothing better than to steal Miss Coles for his own. He already has three young daughters by three different white women, but in his obsessive mind Shelby would make the perfect mother for his biracial children. Even though the Oval is comprised of black middle class residents, the question of belonging is pervasive. The standard assumption that blonde hair and blue eyes means white race. Everyone uses color to get what they want. Example: the preacher uses the image of white children in danger of hurting themselves around a derelict barn in order to get a white man to give him a horse that was of no use to him. The preacher is really after the barn wood.
Dorothy West forces her characters to face the question of identity. The end of The Wedding will leave you hanging. Would Shelby have given Lute a chance if tragedy had not intervened? Were Shelby's sisters right in their warnings about misguided infatuation?½
It is the wedding of beautiful Shelby Coles. Her engagement to a white jazz musician from New York City has her family in turmoil. Lute McNeil would like nothing better than to steal Miss Coles for his own. He already has three young daughters by three different white women, but in his obsessive mind Shelby would make the perfect mother for his biracial children. Even though the Oval is comprised of black middle class residents, the question of belonging is pervasive. The standard assumption that blonde hair and blue eyes means white race. Everyone uses color to get what they want. Example: the preacher uses the image of white children in danger of hurting themselves around a derelict barn in order to get a white man to give him a horse that was of no use to him. The preacher is really after the barn wood.
Dorothy West forces her characters to face the question of identity. The end of The Wedding will leave you hanging. Would Shelby have given Lute a chance if tragedy had not intervened? Were Shelby's sisters right in their warnings about misguided infatuation?½
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SeriousGrace | 16 other reviews | Feb 5, 2023 | An amazingly well-written exploration of weddings as a representation of what we create and destroy when we ensnare ourselves. Elegant and profound, this novel captures a glimpse of a family that may never have existed, but that nevertheless explores the boundaries of our humanity - complicated by expectations and soothed by empathy.
"With a sigh of completion, she fell asleep, and the night folded down on the still spent forms of the forgiven."
"With a sigh of completion, she fell asleep, and the night folded down on the still spent forms of the forgiven."
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dbsovereign | 16 other reviews | Jan 28, 2023 | Rounding up from a 4.5. It was a beautiful story but not super impactful or relatable like my 5-star reads. I listened to the audiobook and it was so well done. The writing is beautiful, the themes are interesting, the characters are complex and we get to experience them all within a brief 24 hours or so of their lives. I really enjoyed seeing this looming wedding from all perspectives. The very end may have wrapped things up a little too neatly, but I think that's forgivable because we know there's so much more this family will continue to sort out.½
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tanyaferrell | 16 other reviews | Dec 29, 2022 | With Reconstruction, in the South, came Jim Crow, and many southern blacks came north to escape segregation. If they were successful enough, and light-colored enough, they were "tolerated" to live among the Whites of Boston, who resented what they considered low blacks, the poor sharecroppers who sought better treatment and wages in the North.
West's book is about the young protagonist who left her family in Virginia, when she was young, to go where she could seek out high society. Her beauty helped her find a successful business man, 23 years older than her, and she began her campaign to rule him and the money he could make. Her character is the opposite of likeable, as she is cold to her hard-working husband, and constantly lies to him and schemes to get money from him to live life on her terms. Autobiographical.
West's book is about the young protagonist who left her family in Virginia, when she was young, to go where she could seek out high society. Her beauty helped her find a successful business man, 23 years older than her, and she began her campaign to rule him and the money he could make. Her character is the opposite of likeable, as she is cold to her hard-working husband, and constantly lies to him and schemes to get money from him to live life on her terms. Autobiographical.
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burritapal | 4 other reviews | Oct 23, 2022 | This remarkable novel by one of the youngest member of the Harlem Renaissance takes place in Boston, amid middle class Black strivers, right before WWI. It's complex and thoughtful, filled with characters who are tormented by their desires to measure up to their white neighbors. It's especially a delight for Bostonians, who will revel in the geography. Cleo Judson, a stubborn, driven woman, has married Bart, the "Boston Banana King", a successful fruit and vegetable entrepreneur, who is much older and tolerates her spendthrift ways because he loves her and their daughter Judy. When Cleo sees an opportunity to move to a large house on a block in Roxbury that borders all-white Brookline, she seizes it and lies to Bart about the monthly rent and about her scheme to bring her three sisters up from the South and away from their husbands. Cleo wishes to recreate her lovely Southern childhood, where, as eldest, she ruled over her sisters and idolized their loving parents. We know what happens with the best laid plans, and Cleo is no exception. Her raging and frequently contradictory feelings manifest themselves in her bullying and lying to everyone, assuring herself that it's for their own good. She's an extraordinarily memorable character, with a blazing personality, always manifesting her cruelty and kindness and continually shocking the reader, who all the while must recognize the overlying racism that forces Cleo's actions.½
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froxgirl | 4 other reviews | Jun 27, 2022 | Boy, I laboured over this short novel. I kept thinking 'Dorothy - is it you or is it me?', and I think the answer is a bit of both as I've been preoccupied over the past few weeks, but still - this novel ended up disappointing, so Dorothy I'm afraid it's you as well.
The premise and characters were really promising - The Oval is a prestigious hidden gem of houses on Martha's Vineyard belonging to the East Coast's black bourgeoisie, and its owners are getting ready for a wedding amidst their set. However, an unwelcome Lothario renting in their exclusive community has other plans where the bride's concerned.
Tick, tick, tick, I thought. What a great setting of place (Martha's Vineyard) and characters (how many other books can I name on the topic of upper middle class African American characters struggling with the issues of race and class within their own families?). And all from a much revered writer. This novel had winner written all over it.
Except, despite being a short novel it meandered all over the place. The plot of the wedding and the unwanted philanderer got parked until the last 25 pages of the book, and West mostly took us away from Martha's Vineyard and back through a detailed synopsis of who had married who across four generations, and who was black, who was white and who was mixed race until my head was spinning with which line of the family she was referring to and who was what colour. It was a baffling number of characters to introduce given the length of the book, and had West spent another 200 pages developing out the relevancy of the back-story to the characters' current day conflicts about race and class it might have worked, but instead she galloped to the finish line and a dramatic conclusion in a scant number of pages, with the back-story dominating so much there was no time to sufficiently develop any main group of characters or to allow time for the relevancy of their ancestral history to be explored.
All in all I found this to be a frustrating disappointment. There was great potential in the writing style and the premise, but too much was squeezed in without sufficient space for the story to breathe.
3 stars - wonderful potential but reached its point with too much haste.
The premise and characters were really promising - The Oval is a prestigious hidden gem of houses on Martha's Vineyard belonging to the East Coast's black bourgeoisie, and its owners are getting ready for a wedding amidst their set. However, an unwelcome Lothario renting in their exclusive community has other plans where the bride's concerned.
Tick, tick, tick, I thought. What a great setting of place (Martha's Vineyard) and characters (how many other books can I name on the topic of upper middle class African American characters struggling with the issues of race and class within their own families?). And all from a much revered writer. This novel had winner written all over it.
Except, despite being a short novel it meandered all over the place. The plot of the wedding and the unwanted philanderer got parked until the last 25 pages of the book, and West mostly took us away from Martha's Vineyard and back through a detailed synopsis of who had married who across four generations, and who was black, who was white and who was mixed race until my head was spinning with which line of the family she was referring to and who was what colour. It was a baffling number of characters to introduce given the length of the book, and had West spent another 200 pages developing out the relevancy of the back-story to the characters' current day conflicts about race and class it might have worked, but instead she galloped to the finish line and a dramatic conclusion in a scant number of pages, with the back-story dominating so much there was no time to sufficiently develop any main group of characters or to allow time for the relevancy of their ancestral history to be explored.
All in all I found this to be a frustrating disappointment. There was great potential in the writing style and the premise, but too much was squeezed in without sufficient space for the story to breathe.
3 stars - wonderful potential but reached its point with too much haste.
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AlisonY | 16 other reviews | Jun 3, 2021 | It's funny, I remember watching this mini-series starring Halle Berry when I was a kid. I really didn't like it since I thought her character was a fool. I also thought her promotion for the mini-series was weird. She was talking crap about the white man she was engaged to in the mini-series and how not attractive he was compared to the hot black man that was also attracted to her. This is a weird segue into reading this book and wondering if Halle Berry actually read it before agreeing to star in this.
Dorothy West's book gives us a really fantastic look at an upper class African American family living on Martha's Vineyard during the 1950s. The main premise is that the Cole's family is dealing with the fallout from their daughter Shelby being engaged to a white jazz musician from New York. Her family rightfully wonders why she didn't choose someone that is more among their class (i.e. having a respectable profession like a doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc.).
Reading this book I was instantly drawn in just because it reminded me a bit of reading "Hidden Figures". You get to read about another subculture of African Americans in the part of the country/world that I just didn't expect them to be.
This book also touches upon colorism very well too. The Cole family is light skinned and they all (mother, father, etc.) run around using that as a weapon against others who are dark skinned. Shelby being the youngest and most beautiful finds herself questioning her upcoming marriage when the darker skinned Lute pressures her to be with him instead of with Meade (her fiancee). West also explores Shelby's parents marriage as well.
What I found fascinating though was that you would probably start this book rooting for Lute until you get into it and find out what is really going on there.
West goes back and forth between past and present and you find out about the Cole matriarch (a white woman) who ended up marrying a black man after the Civil War. Ohh boy, there was some self hating going on there. And you can see from her and her disdain for "blackness" how that affected her children and grandchildren.
The writing was lyrical at times. West definitely has an eye for words. I can see why she was one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance.
I thought the flow was fantastic all the way through. I found out afterward that Former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was the one who ended up editing this book and pushing West's name out there again in the 1990s.
The book being set on Martha's Vineyard definitely had me imagining a lot of things. Maybe it's my own bias, it didn't even occur to me that African Americans could be wealthy (for that era) and live among others back in the 1950s. We do get to see the toll though that the Cole family has with straddling the world of African Americans and white people though.
If I have one complaint it's that this book felt fairly short. I got to the end and went that's it?
Dorothy West's book gives us a really fantastic look at an upper class African American family living on Martha's Vineyard during the 1950s. The main premise is that the Cole's family is dealing with the fallout from their daughter Shelby being engaged to a white jazz musician from New York. Her family rightfully wonders why she didn't choose someone that is more among their class (i.e. having a respectable profession like a doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc.).
Reading this book I was instantly drawn in just because it reminded me a bit of reading "Hidden Figures". You get to read about another subculture of African Americans in the part of the country/world that I just didn't expect them to be.
This book also touches upon colorism very well too. The Cole family is light skinned and they all (mother, father, etc.) run around using that as a weapon against others who are dark skinned. Shelby being the youngest and most beautiful finds herself questioning her upcoming marriage when the darker skinned Lute pressures her to be with him instead of with Meade (her fiancee). West also explores Shelby's parents marriage as well.
What I found fascinating though was that you would probably start this book rooting for Lute until you get into it and find out what is really going on there.
West goes back and forth between past and present and you find out about the Cole matriarch (a white woman) who ended up marrying a black man after the Civil War. Ohh boy, there was some self hating going on there. And you can see from her and her disdain for "blackness" how that affected her children and grandchildren.
The writing was lyrical at times. West definitely has an eye for words. I can see why she was one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance.
.“Beauty is but skin deep, ugly to the bone. And when beauty fades away, ugly claims its own.”
“Because if you don't know someone all that well, you react to their surface qualities, the superficial stereotypes they throw off like sparks... But once you fight through the sparks and get to the person, you find just that, a person, a big jumble of likes, dislikes, fears, and desires.”
I thought the flow was fantastic all the way through. I found out afterward that Former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was the one who ended up editing this book and pushing West's name out there again in the 1990s.
The book being set on Martha's Vineyard definitely had me imagining a lot of things. Maybe it's my own bias, it didn't even occur to me that African Americans could be wealthy (for that era) and live among others back in the 1950s. We do get to see the toll though that the Cole family has with straddling the world of African Americans and white people though.
If I have one complaint it's that this book felt fairly short. I got to the end and went that's it?
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ObsidianBlue | 16 other reviews | Jul 1, 2020 | Loved it! This is a modern day classic. This a novel I wish I had read in a college literature class. The story is very tight, and shows West’s talent as a storyteller. There is no extra fluff. The story may feel unfinished to some, but I am sure that this is on purpose. And is really in keeping with the literature of the twentieth century. Her writing reminded me a bit of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, where we are thrown into a story that unfolds, but doesn’t feel quite finished at the end. But I loved how the story of this African American family was told in flashbacks that reveal more and more of the family’s history that brought them to The Wedding. In some ways this novel is a series of short stories very cleverly woven together with a frame story about a young woman, Shelby, who comes from a mixed race family and is planning to marry a white man. Different members of the family have different feelings about this for good and bad reasons. Or, maybe mostly bad reasons. So glad my book club chose to read this book.
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fictionbookwurm | 16 other reviews | Nov 12, 2019 | Book #5 The Living is Easy - highly recommended
Jackie Onassis spent some of her final years encouraging Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West to finish her second novel, The Wedding. She would visit West at her home in Martha’s Vineyard almost weekly. The first 3/4 of the novel is a marvel. But Onassis died before West completed it and West lost her will to do so after the loss of her friend. An editor completed it – and did so poorly.
So, if you want pure Dorothy West you have to read her first novel, The Living is Easy. This novel, set circa 1915 Boston, features the shenanigans of a married black woman, Cleo, who was born in the south and wants more than anything to become a Bostonian and live the good and mannered life. It shows a panoply of black society, and is a comedy of manners, a black “Middlemarch”, if you will. It captures black people at a time when they were figuring out who they could become and how they were going to fit into America. Early 20th century black high society stretched to include anyone with a non-agricultural or domestic job to Harvard-educated doctors.
At this time in Boston, black people were able to ride on the trolley without taking the back seat and could go into any movie theater, but they faced challenges as they tried to outrun the shadow yet cast by slavery. How to get acknowledged and financially rewarded for your achievement? What is the obligation of the freer northern black population to those still in the south? Should your black newspaper publish events of discrimination or only the successes? Should there be a black newspaper? How should rich black people engage with poor ones? Should people born out of a mixed-race union be given a high status or derided? Should you accept your classmates’ apology for beating you up because they thought you were walking with a white woman who is actually your paler sister? Should you stay in Boston or push to be the only black family in Brookline? Needless to say, these questions can all be asked today. Here they are answered by the funny and devious, yet tragic, character Cleo.
This book is a wonderful time capsule and is written with exquisite skill. It is more of a slice of life than a good story, but it’s a juicy slice.
Jackie Onassis spent some of her final years encouraging Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West to finish her second novel, The Wedding. She would visit West at her home in Martha’s Vineyard almost weekly. The first 3/4 of the novel is a marvel. But Onassis died before West completed it and West lost her will to do so after the loss of her friend. An editor completed it – and did so poorly.
So, if you want pure Dorothy West you have to read her first novel, The Living is Easy. This novel, set circa 1915 Boston, features the shenanigans of a married black woman, Cleo, who was born in the south and wants more than anything to become a Bostonian and live the good and mannered life. It shows a panoply of black society, and is a comedy of manners, a black “Middlemarch”, if you will. It captures black people at a time when they were figuring out who they could become and how they were going to fit into America. Early 20th century black high society stretched to include anyone with a non-agricultural or domestic job to Harvard-educated doctors.
At this time in Boston, black people were able to ride on the trolley without taking the back seat and could go into any movie theater, but they faced challenges as they tried to outrun the shadow yet cast by slavery. How to get acknowledged and financially rewarded for your achievement? What is the obligation of the freer northern black population to those still in the south? Should your black newspaper publish events of discrimination or only the successes? Should there be a black newspaper? How should rich black people engage with poor ones? Should people born out of a mixed-race union be given a high status or derided? Should you accept your classmates’ apology for beating you up because they thought you were walking with a white woman who is actually your paler sister? Should you stay in Boston or push to be the only black family in Brookline? Needless to say, these questions can all be asked today. Here they are answered by the funny and devious, yet tragic, character Cleo.
This book is a wonderful time capsule and is written with exquisite skill. It is more of a slice of life than a good story, but it’s a juicy slice.
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linenandprint | 4 other reviews | Apr 11, 2017 | Several generations of a family cope with the issues every family copes with and more, in that there are black ancestors and those married in, and many pass for white. So racial issues in a very different way, fascinating and charming, come to light. The modern family in the 1950s lives on Martha's Vineyard in a small, tight community of affluent blacks, though their many shades of color are accepted. It's a good community where all the mother's look after all the children. The two daughters of the present family (1950s) are marriageable age; one marries and the other is about to marry when a persistent bad-boy type tries to dissuade her. The family's stories go back to slave days. The book is beautifully written by an accomplished author. I found some sobering, thought-provoking issues in the book, which may have been one of the points. Unfortunately, only a little has changed since then.
Will it ever be possible to help people understand they all belong to the same species? Today's news looks pretty dismal in that regard.
Will it ever be possible to help people understand they all belong to the same species? Today's news looks pretty dismal in that regard.
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Rascalstar | 16 other reviews | Jan 21, 2017 | What a fascinating look at the Black professional class and the snobbery of color and class. Which group is less forgiving - the white Southerners longing for their pre-Civil War "home," or the middle/upper-class Blacks looking with disdain at their less-educated brothers.
And was Tina's death punishment for Lute's daring to move up in rank? Or for his dalliances with white women? Or for his gross mistreatment of women?
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BookConcierge | 16 other reviews | Feb 11, 2016 | Cleo is one of the most despicable characters I have ever had the displeasure of reading about.
This book can be summarized up something like this.
Once upon a time a devilish child named Cleo was born. Her sisters had the misfortune of being very innocent and naïve. She took advantage of them. She hurt them. She was happy.
Cleo grew up and moved away. Her sisters started to have normal lives. Cleo was unhappy about this. This simply would not do. They were too far away from her tentacles. She tricked them. She hurt them. She was happy.
The elite colored Boston community was also caricatured. They were Cleo's equals in cruelty and heartlessness. She was among her peeps.
I love a good villain, but Cleo was just too much for me! Unfortunately that was not the only problem I had with this novel. The storyline just did not interest me, and I struggled to finish this one.
This book can be summarized up something like this.
Once upon a time a devilish child named Cleo was born. Her sisters had the misfortune of being very innocent and naïve. She took advantage of them. She hurt them. She was happy.
Cleo grew up and moved away. Her sisters started to have normal lives. Cleo was unhappy about this. This simply would not do. They were too far away from her tentacles. She tricked them. She hurt them. She was happy.
The elite colored Boston community was also caricatured. They were Cleo's equals in cruelty and heartlessness. She was among her peeps.
I love a good villain, but Cleo was just too much for me! Unfortunately that was not the only problem I had with this novel. The storyline just did not interest me, and I struggled to finish this one.
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londalocs | 4 other reviews | Oct 9, 2014 | If I didn't know this was a collection of "African-American themed short stories" I wouldn't realize it. Year, race is mentioned but not focused upon.
Every word is perfect. The tales are not too short, not too long... just right. Vivid. Mostly uplifting but never "oh, wo-is-me". I like that.
I wanted to move from one story to another. I wish there were more!
Every word is perfect. The tales are not too short, not too long... just right. Vivid. Mostly uplifting but never "oh, wo-is-me". I like that.
I wanted to move from one story to another. I wish there were more!
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PallanDavid | Apr 21, 2014 | Engrossing and fascinating multi-generational tale of an African-American family whose current incarnation is well-off and summering on the Vineyard. It's a study of African-American migration and social assimilation as well as a series of moving character studies. I found the ending anti-climactic. Otherwise it's well worth your time as a well-wrought important American novel.
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bostonbibliophile | 16 other reviews | Mar 4, 2014 | I think it is an important book because it gives insight to Black America's psychological view of itself before the Civil Rights Act. I read the book about 10 years ago and was somewhat disturbed by the way Blacks viewed beauty back when The Wedding was set. I just remember being thankful that my mother was dark and considered beautiful. The fact that I and others found my dark mother so attractive made me totally oblivious to any issues about skin tone when I was growing up. By the time I heard of this type of thinking, it was mercifully too late for me to be scarred.
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ShavonJones | 16 other reviews | Nov 12, 2012 | Dorothy West was one the last surviving of members of the Harlem Renaissance during which she published the magazines, Challenge and New Challenge. The Wedding first published in 1995 is a fascinating and beautifully written look at the privileged, but tiny, African-American community on Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s. Shelby Coles, the youngest daughter of Corinne and Clark Coles, a NYC physician, is about to marry Meade Wyler, a white jazz musician. As the wedding nears, the history of the family, descended from slaves and slave-owners, unfolds and a complication arises. Lute McNeil, a furniture craftsman, has rented one of the houses in the Oval neighborhood with his three motherless daughters, and he is determined to marry Shelby himself.
It's illuminating how weddings bring out deep-seated cultural values and mores. It makes me want to go back and reread Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding and Carson McCuller's The Member of the Wedding.½
It's illuminating how weddings bring out deep-seated cultural values and mores. It makes me want to go back and reread Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding and Carson McCuller's The Member of the Wedding.½
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janeajones | 16 other reviews | May 9, 2010 | 25 Dec 2009 - gift from fellow LibraryThing Viragoite Belva
A short novel, published in 1995 by an author I associated with an earlier era, this is a fascinating and involving exposition of history, race and class though 19th and 20th century America. Opening in a community of the black bourgeousie in 1950s Martha's Vineyard, we are soon tracing back the lineages of the main family through black and white, lower and upper classes, back to freed slaves and poverty-stricken workers. Women are raised to prize their light colour, then castigated if they choose a black or a white husband. Innocent and beautifully-drawn children suffer the expectations and assumptions of their elders, to often tragic effect.
Both meditative and full of action and character, this is an important book that can teach us all something, even if we think we already know about the histories and issues involved.
A short novel, published in 1995 by an author I associated with an earlier era, this is a fascinating and involving exposition of history, race and class though 19th and 20th century America. Opening in a community of the black bourgeousie in 1950s Martha's Vineyard, we are soon tracing back the lineages of the main family through black and white, lower and upper classes, back to freed slaves and poverty-stricken workers. Women are raised to prize their light colour, then castigated if they choose a black or a white husband. Innocent and beautifully-drawn children suffer the expectations and assumptions of their elders, to often tragic effect.
Both meditative and full of action and character, this is an important book that can teach us all something, even if we think we already know about the histories and issues involved.
2
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LyzzyBee | 16 other reviews | Mar 20, 2010 | This book deals with romance, race and social class. The setting is Martha's Vineyard in the 1950's. The topics of the story are great for lively discussions.
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glynish | 16 other reviews | Jul 6, 2009 | This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.