The @alphasigmaalpha book club pick that we selected instead of the original book was amazing!!! @cajuntrinity knows my love of history and she selected for us to read this book which is set on Cane River. Cane River is a small river that break off the Red River at Campti and joins back up in Colfax. This is a multigenerational book about a slave family told in 3 parts, from 1834 to 1936. The 3 parts are told from the matriarch narrative. I loved reading the rich history and narrative of a place where I lived for 4 years of my life. I just wish I knew how amazing this place was when I lived there. If you read this book and you need help with pronunciations, let me know! #caneriver #lalitatademy #pipesreads

I recommend this for all the women I know in the Downtown Book Club.

What a gorgeous novel. The key thing is, is that this novel was based on Lalita Tademy's own family history. She calls it fiction, though, because she had to elaborate and add rich detail to the simple stories she had been told of her grandmothers before her.

What shocked me most about this novel was that it was Tademy's first. Her writing seems to reflect years and years of writing before her, it flows so well and the language is so rich. You can't criticize her characters, because they are real, even so she added layers on to them that just increased their likeability.

It was funny, because I didn't think I was going to like the fact that the book followed every generation closely. I thought I would bond with Suzette and feel slight resentment when her daughter and granddaughters story came up, but I didn't. Somehow I loved it. I loved it because the mothers and grandmothers weren't shoved to the side when the story switched focus, which is further reflection on how Tademy's family thinks of their elders, especially their grandmother's.

This book is a surprisingly enjoyable novel, and I'd say if the story doesn't sound like something you would want to read, give it a try anyway. I really don't need to say too much about this novel because it doesn't need much. Everything about it is great, and really, that's all I need to say.

Cane River covers 137 years of the author's family history, written as fiction, but rooted in research, historical fact and family stories. The matriarch of the line was the Negress, Elisabeth, sold away from a plantation in Virginia to the backwaters of Louisiana. It was heartbreaking at times to read the stories of her descendants' families as they were torn apart by slave auctions, abandoned by their fathers who were white, and faced the sentence of illiteracy. At the same time, it was inspiring to read of the resourcefulness of the women I met in the book. They were smart, strong, hard working, loving mothers who were human just like me. Through Tademy's words and easy-to-read writing style, I could smell the wood fires and cooking greens, see the sweat glisten around the cotton pickers' necks and the dust on their feet, and hear the lilt of the Creole French spoken by the inhabitants of Cane River, Louisiana. That period in time was wrong, and if there is a judgement day, many sins must be accounted for from that ugly time in our history.

So..I wrote an in depth review of this but Goodreads didn't save it so in short I loved this book! The fact that it was loosely based on Lalita's own personal family history adds an extra layer of love to it. Even though there's many characters, we mostly focus on 4 generations of women and they have such depth to them. They each are very unique in what they want out of life and for their own children. Some make decisions that are hard but understandable based on their circumstances. We follow this family through slavery, civil war, reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era. I love a good family saga that isn't cluttered and this was perfect. I would definitely reread this long but fast paced novel.

This had been on shelf for some time. Usually avoid OW books. I was looking for a possible book to review for the local paper and pulled this one out. I know people from the area so thought it might be interesting.
Once I got into the book I could not put it down. I know what will happen-have to see what happens-know what will happen-have to see what will happen. This over and over. Also found the history of the author and how she came to write the book a great story.
It will be the next review.

If you are looking for historical fiction that focuses on the lives and struggles of African American women, I highly recommend picking up Cane River. Lalita Tademy has turned her family story into a fictionalized account of three generations of women who have each faced physical and emotional trauma with strength, dedication to family, and a burning need to move their families forward. When faced with no choice but to physically submit themselves to the men who hold the power of life and death over them, each woman ultimately does what she feels is best for the resulting children.

The means by which the family is moved forward is by bleaching the line through the generations. This process isn't truly by choice, but these strong women use whatever advantages that they can grasp for their children. Suzette and Philomene never actually have a choice in who the father of their children will be, but their perseverance, resourcefulness, and pure grit is impressive. Having modern sensibilities, it is upsetting to know that the skin color helped to define the hopes of a mother for her children. Yet, women with no power over their own bodies and futures had to maneuver and manipulate advancement as best they could.

It was Emily's story, the last generation delved into in Cane River, that was the most heartbreaking for me. Emily had a taste of love, even though it was a tarnished one. Emily's desire to just be without being harassed for simply existing, and being audacious enough to attract and acquire love from a white man, was what made her an even larger target for savage mistreatment. Tademy actually had me feeling sorry for a man who couldn't defend a family that he knew would never be accepted. Even though I felt compassion for Joseph, his arrogance and sense of entitlement is what led to his downfall and eventually cost him everything. Both Emily and Joseph were naive in their belief that they could be left alone to live as they wished, but especially Joseph. As a white male living in their community after the Civil War, he should have know that he could not be a successful businessman and expect others not to balk at the idea of him having a woman with even a trace of black blood. The ending of the book had me upset knowing that after all that Emily had endured and survived, society still made sure that she knew her place.

However, toward the end there is a bit of joy given to me via the choice of Emily's son T.O. to break the line by his choice of a wife. It was a step that not only set him apart as a man who thinks for himself, but also a step to break the cycle that T.O. saw as destroying his own sense of self worth. Ya'll....There is so much to experience in Cane River!

I generally haven't had the best of luck with Oprah Book Club picks, however Cane River was a home run for me and is going on my favorite reads list. I am so glad that I grabbed this one when I saw it in my local Goodwill for only a dollar. Spending a dollar and discovering a new favorite read is about as good as it gets! Reading this one makes me wish that I belonged to an organized book club so that I could discuss all of the issues and feelings that Tademy evoked. This was a hard review to rein in. It would be so easy to write a review on each woman featured! Cane River is a very well paced read that will hit you in all of the feels and provides food for thought long after you close the cover. I am now going to have to get a copy of Red River, which focuses on the Tademy side of the family.

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I enjoyed the historical fiction aspect of this. It covers a particular time in history that I always love to get lost in.

This started out strong. The balance of both the historical and the fiction seemed to work right out of the gate. They were married well together, but as the story shifts to different generations, sometimes one or the other gets lost. It sometimes felt like an info dump, which is not a good thing. And sometimes it felt like a character parade. So somewhere after the first generation it became a little confusing. So 3 stars (I wish it could have been 4.)

As a Black American from the South, I am proud of my family’s story of survival. With roots in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida, I can relate to different accounts by people a few generations from slavery. The things that our people endured back then don’t always feel real. It wasn’t until my time at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that I found myself surrounded by people from families such as Lalita Tademy’s in Cane River. This book has been on my to-be-read shelf for a decade and after reading it, it should be a contemporary American classic, especially of Southern Literature.

Cane River is about four women; Elisabeth, Suzette, Philomene, and Emily who spent much of their lives surviving and creating a world for their offspring. These are all formidable women throughout Lalita Tademy’s family history and each part of the book details their trials and tribulations on a small plantation during the back end of slavery and the era of reconstruction until Emily died in 1936. It is a family saga filled with reverence and an honest portrayal of what many “Creole” or mixed-race Black people went through during this time. Early in the book, a white man raped Suzette, and by the end of this book, Suzette’s granddaughter Emily is fighting for her children’s inheritance after the death of her beloved, a white man who is the father of her children. It details the complexities of what “Black” and “white” is and the relationship between Black and mixed-race women with white men as lovers and enslavers. Because interracial relationships were illegal, white men might love their children but they could not inherit.

As I mentioned, there is a rape that occurs early in this book that was disturbing to read but unfortunately, that was the reality for Black enslaved girls of the time. What holds this book together is the enduring spirit of these women. It is a family saga based on hundreds of documents of research and word of mouth. I was jealous that something like this doesn’t exist in my family. I don’t want to detail the entire book in this review because it is a family epic with so much happening. What I can say is that the writing is strong and engaging. These are real people but since they lived in a different time, they could have been caricatures but they don’t feel like that.

My only complaint is that it was a little hard to follow at times. Early in the book, there was a year listed but as it continues, there’s nothing that tells us what year it is besides some documents here and there. I would have liked to be able to follow the story along better. I realize that because of the lack of documentation on Black families, a lot of it is guesswork so I don’t want to focus too much on that complaint.

Another complaint is the fact that this is marked as historical fiction but it’s not as literary as I would have hoped. It is more like a family history or memoir which is also not a huge complaint, just something that made me question publishers. There is a lot of recounting in this book but it does not flow like a more literary historical fiction.

All in all, this was an excellent read that will stick with me for a long time. I am a big fan of stories like this, particularly in Louisiana which is a state filled with so much haunting, magic, pain, festivity, and complexities.

Wonderful and Soulful

Publishers description: "Five generations and a hundred years in the life of a matriarchal black Louisiana family are encapsulated in this ambitious debut novel that is based in part upon the lives, as preserved in both historical record and oral tradition, of the author's ancestors. In 1834, nine-year-old Suzette, the "cocoa-colored" house servant of a Creole planter family, has aspirations to read, to live always in a "big house" and maybe even to marry into the relatively privileged world of the gens de couleur libre. Her plans are dashed, however, when at age 13 a French migr takes her as his mistress. Her "high yellow" daughter Philomene, in turn, is maneuvered into becoming the mother of Creole planter Narcisse Fredieu's "side family." After the Civil War, Philomene pins her hopes for a better future on her light-skinned daughter, Emily Fredieu, who is given a year of convent schooling in New Orleans. But Emily must struggle constantly to protect her children by her father's French cousin from terrorist "Night Riders" and racist laws. Tademy is candid about her ancestors' temptations to "pass," as their complexions lighten from the color of "coffee, to cocoa, to cream to milk, to lily." While she fully imagines their lives, she doesn't pander to the reader by introducing melodrama or sex. Her frank observations about black racism add depth to the tale, and she demonstrates that although the practice of slavery fell most harshly upon blacks, and especially women, it also constricted the lives and choices of white men. Photos of and documents relating to Tademy's ancestors add authenticity to a fascinating story."~~~~~~~
I picked up this book on a whim and was worried I wouldn't enjoy it due to it's volume. However, once I began reading, I was unable to stop. This is a book for any woman who wants to walk in the life of those who came before her, to really appreciate the hardships women have endured in order to make this life for current women possible. Engrossing, wonderfully and vividly written, your emotions go up and down with the characters'.

How did I miss this book? Lalita Tademy's family story is so well written, and the product of such excellent research that it could be considered history. Tademy not only gives us her family saga based upon stories, historical documents, but she gives us a picture of slavery in Louisiana. Of course, I knew that many French people settled that area, but I didn't realize that French men didn't have the aversion to Negros/ slaves that was characteristic of most white slave owners. Some French farmers fell in love, lived with negro women and loved their children by those women. But law didn't allow them to marry or pass property to them. This is also a story of the strong women in Tademy's heritage. Starting with her great-grandmother, Elisabeth, through three generations, the women who chose or were forced to bear children of the French men, the family becomes a lighter skin color. Also these women could not hold property through the years, but plot and persuade fathers of their children to give them money and eventually hold land. So the family gradually bring themselves out of slavery. It is a fascinating story and so well told. These were real living people who fostered strong family ties. I'm so thankful to Lalita Tademy for leaving her Sun-Microsystems, where she was a vice-president, to research and write this book.

One of the strongest parts of this book that stood out for me was the depth and breadth of the characters, particularly the women. This novel is a fictional depiction of the author’s own family tree for six generations exclusively through the female line with one exception: her grandfather. The personalities and portrayals of all the people throughout this novel are so real that it felt like I personally knew each one of them. I could picture each one like a finely detailed pen and ink portrait that is then filled in with watercolour shadings applied with a thin brush.

I was also deeply impressed by the honesty of these depictions. There is no candy-coating of flaws or quirks of personality – these are all layered generously on the portraits. Underlying the surface and the day-to-day interactions, are the qualities that are passed down through each generation like a family legacy: inner strength, the ability to endure and persevere, respect for others – especially their elders – and above all, dignity.

Yes, the earlier generations were slaves and forced into humility when serving their masters, yet they did so with dignity. Some people in this family were bought and sold, females were subjected to being used sexually by their masters, yet dignity remained. Largely, this seemed to come about because no matter what – no matter who the fathers were - each child born became part of the women’s family. They were loved, cared for, and taught to uphold the family values.

There were also separations and illnesses and conflicts and deaths. Through these six generations, there were wars and there were gains and losses. There were times of freedom, yet in the Louisiana of the day, that freedom came at great cost, too, and that freedom only went so far.

This family saga, based on hundreds of documents and years of research, carried me on a journey to a place and a time that feels so much more familiar to me than it ever did before. Through the stories of this family, I was able to live a part of history and come away inspired by the courage and determination they utilized to move them through some of the hardest years of those times past.

I am grateful, and I recommend this book to everyone who enjoys reading historical family sagas. I also look forward to reading more of Lalita Tademy’s novels.