Cane RiverLalita Tademy
number of voters: 6
percentage of voters who finished the book: 100%
highest rating: 8
lowest rating: 6
average rating: 6.67
percentage of readers who are women: 100
percentage of readers who are white: 100
percentage of readers who have any firsthand knowledge or understanding of slavery: 0
percentage of readers who, through reading this book, learned something knew about the history of slavery in America: 100
I am compelled to write.
The forewomen of First Monday Reading Group are standing behind me, reading over my shoulder, willing my fingers to type.
It isn’t that Cane River is the best book we’ve ever read. The writing is scattered, the dates muddled, the facts uneven. But something in the story of these women pulled us in, pushed us forward.
That’s how it is with Cane River, Lalita Tademy’s very personal tale of her ancestor’s generational passage from slave to free.
It’s a novel—not quite historical fiction, not quite personal memoir—but the line between fact and fiction is blurred as much as the line between blacks and whites. It’s a narrative about slavery, but it is unlike any story of slavery we’ve ever read. It’s a picture of the strength of women who labored under the burdens of injustice yet who could still hold their heads high.
The story is in turns fascinating, frustrating, maddening, moving. It is not quite the portrait of good and evil to which we are accustomed; one might, in fleeting moments, sympathize with a plantation owner who is facing bankruptcy, or perhaps, surprisingly, understand the unenviable position of a white man who loves a black woman. And yet, no amount of sympathy outweighs the simple, incomprehensible fact that human beings—mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, brothers, sisters, babies—were bought and sold, as though they were nothing more than cattle.
This is the history of America. It may be flawed, but it is what our nation is made of. Cane River offers an honest glimpse of one important thread of this American tapestry.
