From a cosmopolitan family are beget descendants who are stolen for
slavery in the American South, bringing dear reader to Fammy, who
begets Clora by a black man because she wanted a black baby for her
own, after enduring her master’s rapes and the selling of her
children. She takes her life, as does Clora, when she envisions the
future of her daughter Always. Yet Clora persists as a spiritual
entity, watching her family throughout their lives. This is the story
of Always, unable to follow her siblings in their escape by passing
for white, who rises above her veneer of subjugation, fully prepared
to live free after emancipation. Clora witnesses her family branch
out again across the globe.
presents the vicarious existence of slaves, and the various ways that
could procure a safer passage, as well as the intricately convoluted
familial connections betwixt white masters / mistresses and slaves.
The hint of dialect bumps through both races, showing the blending of
cultures based on proximity, and religion also bleeds across the
barriers, represented by Clora’s routine references to the
Christian God. This novel offers a valuable lesson in how the
foundation for systemic racism was laid and on what our country was
built, in spite of the whitewashed American dream. Read it with a
careful eye toward the small references and unspoken understandings
Watching from my third story window, I caught a picturesque moment–a couple canoodling inside an umbrella in the seductive drizzle of a Paris afternoon.
I hummed to myself, “I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles,” and began the process of separating myself emotionally from my second husband and oldest daughter…who were kissing in full view of the hotel.
Maddie and Ellis are trapped by money—his family’s—while a second world war rages in Europe, as he cannot serve in the war due to a medical condition. When his father kicks them out of his family home for their unseemly behavior, Ellis determines to win back his love by redeeming the family name from his father’s loutish attempt to prove the Loch Ness monster. In Scotland, Maddie is alienated by her husband, whose loyalty is to his best friend and their travel companion Hank. She discovers more about her marriage and their friendship than Ellis does about Nessie, and she begins to question everything about her life, and even her husband’s “medical condition.” As Ellis and Hank display boorish behavior toward the locals, Maddie finds comfort in their compassion for her. She ends up caring for an injured employee of their inn, endearing herself to the innkeeper and his employees.
This story flows well, with characters who retain their integrity, as allies shift and secrets come to light. Gruen represents the complexities of emotions and relationships, with betrayals and revelations as catalysts. Class distinction in all its petty elitism is laid out perfectly, emitting its fear and paranoia. In the end, a love story emerges like a butterfly.