A Long Way from Home

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Briscoe (Big Girls Don't Cry) reconstructs her family history in this dense and plot-driven tale. Daughter of a chambermaid and of a driver at a neighboring property, 10-year-old Clara is a house slave at retired president James Madison's Montpelier plantation. When "massa" dies, the rhythm of their lives is disrupted, and Madison's stepson's poor management throws Montpelier into chaos, leading to its inevitable sale to new owners. Soon afterward, Clara gives birth to daughters Ellen and Susan, but will tell them their only that their father is white. They adjust to a series of owners over several years, but the family is fractured when Ellen runs away and Susan is bought as a gift for Lizbeth, the daughter of Mr. Willard, a wealthy Richmond banker and former Montpelier owner who is connected to Susan's past. Off the plantation for the first time, Susan is sometimes mistaken for white in public, giving her a glimpse of the complicated freedom of "passing." She meets and eventually marries Oliver Armistead, a respected free black, amid the rumblings of impending civil war. After the war, the Willards are left in financial ruin, and so agree to let Susan leave Richmond with Oliver. Only then can she answer the mysteries of her paternity and discover the fate of her scattered family. Briscoe's characters, especially Susan, are largely appealing, and the novel's extended chronology is informative. While the book's conclusion is unsurprising, its author's personal exploration of her family's history (Susan is Briscoe's great-great-grandmother) is able historical fiction, although character development is sacrificed to a panoramic view. 150,000 first printing; $350,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

This historical novel follows a family of slaves living in Virginia from the antebellum period to after the Civil War. It focuses on Susan, who grows up on a country plantation but is sold to a new master in Richmond. The separation from her family and familiar surroundings is painful, as is the adjustment to life in the city. Although she is treated better, she is still unable to fulfill her own dreams. Then she meets and falls in love with Oliver, a free black man, but their newfound freedom is tempered by personal tragedies and the difficulties blacks faced in the postwar South. The main characters are real people discovered during the author's investigations into her own ancestry. Reader Audra McDonald ably expresses the sadness of separation, the moments of joy, and the frustration of not being in control of one's own fate. Recommended for public library fiction collections.--Catherine Swenson, Norwich Univ. Lib., Northfield, VT Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Kirkus Reviews

In a disappointing third novel, the bestselling author of Big Girls Don't Cry (1996), etc., draws on her family's history in a story about slavery, miscegenation, and the Civil War. The aim is worthy, but Briscoe never follows through on events or fully explores her characters, who remain curiously sealed off from one another and the times they live in. The story begins in the last years of James Madison's life, out of office and living at Montpelier, where house-slave Susan works as a housekeeper, aided by ten-year old daughter Clara. As she grows up, Clara describes her increasing anger with whites and her hatred of slavery. Following Madison's death, Dolley Madison's wastrel son Todd, deeply in debt, sells many of the slaves as well as Montpelier. Clara stays on under the succession of white masters, one of whom fathers her two daughters, Ellen and Susan (the author's great-great grandmother) who are fair enough to pass as white. Curiously, Clara never explains the circumstances or names the man. When yet another master takes over, daughter Susan is sold to a Mr. Willard, a rich banker in Richmond whom Susan recognizes as the white man who gave her pennies when she was a child. She also looks like his daughters, Lizbeth and Ellen, but nothing is said or thought about this curious circumstance. As Susan becomes part of the household, looking after Lizbeth's children and falling in love with freed slave Oliver Armistead, the Civil War begins. Susan and Oliver marry, but he's taken away to man the defenses of Richmond and she must live with the Willard family, which continues to be self-absorbed and terminally stupid. Even when the War ends, they don't seem to grasp its implications,but Susan, realizing now that she's free, is reunited with Oliver and heads to the Tidewater to make a new home and life. Heartfelt, but a thin and unsatisfying take on a weighty and still urgent subject. (First printing of 150,000, $350,000 ad/promo, author tour)