Recommendation: Cane River by Lalita Tademy

I read this book last year, but, as I haven't been finishing books fast enough to keep this blog going, I thought I would recommend it now! I loved this book soooo much. The author was high up in the corporate world, but couldn't stop thinking about the stories of her ancestors she had grown up hearing. So she quit her job and starting researching her geneology full-time. What she found could have filled a book! So she wrote that book. This story starts with her great-great-great grandmother (I think...), who was born into slavery, and follows the lineage down to her great-grandmother. But this is no dull read. Tademy took a risk and wrote the book as a narrative fictional tale and it paid off. Unfortunately, I listened to the book on CD...the actual book is filled with pictures and contracts and all sorts of historical documents that I didn't get to see. This book gave me such an insight into the lives of slaves. Granted, as Americans, we spend a lot of time hearing about and learning about slavery, but I don't think I ever saw it humanized as much as I did while listening to this book. For example, this book drives home the point that slaves had NO possessions. Not the clothes on their backs, not the furniture they carved out of wood, not even the children they bore. Wow. Please, pick up this book and read it. Tademy also wrote about her father's family tree in Red River, but I haven't had a chance to read that one yet.