All We Were Promised, by Ashton Lattimore

-

 



This is an historical novel set in Philadelphia before The Civil War. It is well researched, and involved some fascinating and appalling history concerning Pennsylvania and slavery which I’d never encountered in history class ( I am from Pennsylvania). 


The characters in the story describe diverse experiences. For instance, there’s Nell, a young woman born into a wealthy Black family in Philadelphia, Charlotte (or Carrie), a woman who escaped a Southern plantation with her father, and James, Charlotte’s father, a talented woodworker who is passing as a rising businessman in the white community. Charlotte is posing as her father’s domestic servant, a role James keeps her tethered to to keep her safe, which unfortunately does not keep her happy. And finally, there is Evie, a close friend Charlotte left behind so unceremoniously when she ran away, and who just happens to suddenly appear in Philadelphia, but not as a free woman. 


I’m impressed that the author took on the hard task of imagining the mindset of young  Black women in Philadelphia during such a scary and brutal time.  Lattimore was able to tell these women’s  stories and make their conversations and actions seem real and believable. Actually, all the people who populated this story felt real. The anger, angst, and fear that Nell, Charlotte, and Evie experienced was palpable. 



The engaging plot of this novel was inspired by Victor Hugo’s  Les Misérables, and the evolving relationship between Jean Valjean and Cosette. In Lattimore’s story, we watch  as James and Charlotte fight their way free and then find their different identities and ways forward in life. All We Were Promised is a fascinating story that I would recommend to most people. 


Thank you to Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine and Netgalley for this opportunity

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

-
Image
This is a beautifully told story about love and friendship, and how those two terms can both describe a single relationship. Love, work, and love of work are central themes. The story focuses on Sam and Sadie, who meet as kids, by accident.  They are a couple of brilliant introverts with a common interest in video games. Years later, they run into each other again, by chance, and it is Sam who is determined to stay in touch, with the specific hope of making games with Sadie. Eventually, they do just that, and by this time, there are other people in both of their lives, especially Marx, Sam’s college roommate, foil, and protector. Marx is an extroverted thespian into Shakespeare who coaxes Sam into bonding with him.  Sam has known trauma and adversity, is awkward socially, and is also self-conscious about a physical disability. Sadie must navigate the challenges of being the only woman in a room of gamers and struggles to be taken seriously in her career. She is also preyed upo...
Read more

Fear the Silence, by Robert Bryndza

-
Image
Many thanks to Raven Street Publishing and Netgalley for introducing me to Robert Bryndza. This thriller was just that, and kept my rapt attention most of the time. Maggie and Will are middle-aged professionals living the affluent life of their dreams: Maggie is a trauma surgeon, and Will has left medicine to pursue architecture, his passion. The author quickly paints a picture of a happy life together, until Will is carried into the trauma unit where his wife Maggie is working, dying of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Maggie has a very hard time accepting the idea that Will has killed himself. She saw no signs of depression, no sign of anything amiss.  In the following days and weeks, as Maggie tries to come to grips with her new life, she travels to the vacation home they built on an island in Croatia. This is when things get scary and creepy. Once there, Maggie will discover more about a part of Will’s life he never shared with her, while alive. However, it turns out that ...
Read more

If I Survive You, by Jonathan Escoffery

-
Image
Jonathan Escoffery has succeeded in writing a series of short stories so connected that the entire work can be taken for a novel. Additionally, these memorable stories are both sad and funny, deal with a young person’s identity crisis (both racial and cultural), racism, homelessness, family discord, financial disaster, and Miami culture. Most of the stories focus on Trelawney, the younger son of Jamaican immigrants, and the only person in his nuclear family to have been born in the US. At school, no one thinks he looks or sounds Jamaican, because he is not. Additionally, his complexion suggests Hispanic or Dominican, and it turns out that in this country, society has a need to pigeon hole people’s ethnicity, so at times, Trelawney has to announce himself as Black. The absurdity of colorism is very well portrayed. Escoffery’s writing style is impressive, and I am personally in awe of how he portrayed Trelawney’s desperate poverty and homelessness without crushing the reader with overwhe...
Read more