"She made her mind blank as a sheet as she walked into the barn's dark maw, in much the same way her father had walked into the sea. She had never been told what body of water it was, only that he charged forward into the rising water, determined to walk back home. Mother Mary, why did you not bring me a great sea to walk into?"
Tracey Rose Peyton juggles a litany of characters and shifts in perspective from third person to an omniscient "we" to elegantly bring off the resonant "Night Wherever We Go."
Documenting life on a Texas plantation, the novel takes a number of terrifying turns. Peyton balances this horror with the complex origin stories and pasts of the characters who have developed unfathomable mechanisms to cope with what they're enduring.
"She held on to him, wondering if she could be content with that difference. Wasn't that marriage -- to weather any shift in altitude, longitude, latitude?"
With points of view difficult to determine at times, some characters, like Lulu, get lost in the shuffle. Yet the author's prose -- subtle yet beautiful, understated but powerful -- frames the story in an accessible way, honoring the brutality without losing the ability to celebrate the individuals.
"Night Wherever You Go" is a staggering debut novel that is essential reading for those who seek a more complete picture of America's past and its implications on present conversations and future hopes for growth.
"When the pain thickens, Serah will summon the little girl by her bedside once more and tighten her swollen fingers around the child's tiny hand. And it'll be hard to say which one is the anchor affixing them to this new world, lest they be suddenly wrenched back into the old one."
No comments:
Post a Comment