Far from the Tree

Patrick Henry Bass

Dynamic duo Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant's Far From the Tree is an absorbing account of a family trying to heal old wounds. DeBerry and Grant have an amazing ear for dialogue and a solid sense of community and family.
— Essence

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Strong, colorful characters distinguish DeBerry and Grant's (Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made) warm and moving African-American family drama. When Will Frazier dies, his family gathers for the funeral in Buffalo, N.Y. Della, his grieving wife, is overwhelmed by memories. Celeste, the Fraziers' bossy eldest daughter, is driving away her husband and their 23-year-old daughter, Niki, with her controlling behavior. Younger Frazier sibling Ronnie, a struggling actress, is desperate to hide her hand-to-mouth existence from the family. Will has deeded a house in Prosper, N.C., to his daughters; a few months after the funeral, just as their lives are about to bottom out, they decide to inspect the place before they sell it, despite Della's protests. The house, it is eventually revealed, once belonged to Della's biological father, who took in 10-year-old Della (who was born out of wedlock) when her mother died. As Celeste and Ronnie explore the town in which their mother grew up, Della's story unfolds. Tormented and sexually assaulted by her violent half-brother Henry, teenage Della, a talented singer, finally finds happiness with Lester, an ambitious amateur performer. Lester leaves for the city and promises to send for her, but when Della must suddenly flee for her life after Henry accidentally kills their father, she loses touch with Lester, eventually moving to New York and marrying his friend, Will, in 1957. In the present day, Della joins her daughters in Prosper when Ronnie falls ill and finds unexpected comfort from the friends she'd left behind, just as her daughters confront the realities of their lives. Although the narrative ends abruptly and predictably, the story otherwise moves gracefully between the 1950s and the present day, and an unusually varied cast of minor characters add spice to the full-bodied tale. 150,000 first printing; author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Della Frazier and her two middle-aged daughters, Celeste and Ronnie, are in crisis. Della's husband has just died; Celeste's marriage is crumbling; and Ronnie, pursuing an acting career in New York, becomes sick and destitute. While cleaning out their father's home office, Celeste discovers that he has left her and Ronnie a house on 45 acres of land in Prosper, NC. Della fights hard to prevent her daughters from visiting the house and town that she had vowed at age 18 never to set foot in again. This novel has a seamless, omniscient narrative voice. The major theme here is the importance of facing up to the past and the present even though it may be painful. YAs will relate to the childhood and teenage years of the three main characters and see the bittersweet relationships among them. Young women in frequent conflict with their own mothers will also identify with Celeste's 23-year-old daughter when she fights against her mother's attempts to control her life. Those who are dreaming of a career in the enter-tainment industry will be interested in Ronnie's story, as well as the early musical careers of Della and her first boyfriend.-Joyce Fay Fletcher, Prince William County Library System, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

DeBerry and Grant had great success as coauthors of a first novel for both, Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made (1996), receiving (we're told) 15,000 letters and emails as well as wide recognition in the AfricanAmerican press. Their second effort will likely gain them an even greater audience. The melodramatic story, again turning on sisterhood but also on the theme of mothers and daughters, unlike the span of decades covered in their debut, tells of an unexpected trip South by two unalike AfricanAmerican sisters, Celeste, the rigid wife of a doctor, and Ronnie, an actress with little success, both raised in the North, when they inherit from their father a strange house in Prosper, North Carolina. Nobody knew about this house, so what has Daddy been up to? This is the kind of unexpected trip "that turns your life upside down and barely leaves you time to pack," the authors tell us in a "Dear Reader" letter.