Our hostess for the month of July was Brenda and once again she outdid herself. The chairs around the dining table were cleverly adorned with vintage aprons of varying designs and styles. Our meal looked like it had jumped directly off the pages of a Southern Living magazine! We indulged in homemade rolls, a sweet fruit salad, potato salad, ham, and carrot medallions. As if that wasn't enough, we managed to make room for the decadent banana pudding straight from Paula Deen. Typing up this meal has made me crave another helping of everything! I'm sorry I failed to take a picture of this feast.
Synopsis:
In 1791, seven year old Lavinia is orphaned during her journey from Ireland to the United States. The captain of the ship takes her as an indentured servant to his home where she is raised among his house slaves. Lavinia comes to accept and love the slaves as her own family. As she grows into a young woman, Lavinia journeys to Williamsburg for her education. There she becomes reacquainted with the captain's son, Marshall, and marries him. Lavinia dreams of returning to the plantation, Tall Oaks, and reuniting with her family in the hopes of improving their lives. Lavinia does return to Tall Oaks, but finds that her attempts at fulfilling those dreams only bring about nightmarish results for her loved ones.
Comments:
It is obvious that the author took great pains to create a realistic portrait of life during a time when America was still in its infancy and slavery was a commonly accepted practice. The story has so much heartache and tragedy including sexual and physical abuse, murder, deceit, and the tearing apart of slave families.
Although the story is told through the eyes of two narrators, Lavinia and Belle, it is Lavinia who dominates the storyline. Lavinia is young, vulnerable, and naive when she is first placed in the care of Belle in the kitchen house at the tender age of seven. The story takes the reader up to the year 1810 when Lavinia is 26 years old. However, we felt frustrated that Lavinia appeared to still be vulnerable and naive as a grown woman. Her character did not grow and develop into the strong, decisive, and self-assured mistress of the home. The reality of the lives of her 'adopted' slave family seemed to continually escape her. As Belle states on page 256, "Mama says in some ways, Lavinia thinks like a child. She don't always get what's going on. She comes back here, wanting everything to be the same. It's like she don't know that when she marries Marshall, she's gonna take on his world. Mama's trying to help her see it right, but like Mama say, sometimes we got to live it out before we learn." It would have been much more satisfying to see Lavinia act like she was capable of tackling the issues surrounding her family and for her to seek out the truth.
We marveled at how Jamie, the mulatto son of Belle, acts with more courage and self-assurance than Lavinia. Our musings brought us to the conclusion that perhaps because Lavinia lived and socialized with the slaves and Jamie lived and socialized with the whites, they each took on the respective roles of their mentors. Lavinia was not raised with a sense of entitlement, despite being white, while Jamie was raised in the big house being pampered by Marshall's mother.
Our favorite character is Mama Mae. She is strong, loving, wise, self-sacrificing, and indispensable. We thought she could have easily been the main character of this book and narrated the story from her viewpoint. She knew secrets from both the main house and within the slave quarters. She had a foot in both worlds and knew how to safely navigate both. As she told her daughters on page 28, "I act like I don't have no mind of my own, except how to make everybody in the big house happy. That because I mean to stay up there, and I tryin' hard to keep you girls with me." She was a mother to all and her maternal instincts didn't falter when she helped care for an orphaned Irish waif.
Most Memorable Quote:
"Abinia," she [Mama Mae] said, "this I know. What the color is, who the daddy be, who the mama is don't mean nothin'. We a family, carin' for each other. Family make us strong in times of trouble. We all stick together, help each other out. That the real meanin' of family. When you grow up, you take that family feelin' with you."
FAB Rating:
***1/2 (3-1/2 out of 5 Stars)
We found it disappointing that Lavinia did not mature in a fashion which would have allowed her to truly become the mistress of her household. We realize there are limitations to what a woman in her position could actually accomplish without injury to herself or her family, but we still hoped to see her break free of her weak mindset. She sums it up herself quite well, "Fortunately, making myself amenable was not foreign to me, as I had lived this way for much of my life." (p. 217)
We admire that the author feels she stayed true to the characters' story. When she tried to alter a storyline because it was leading to disturbing results, the story would die and she had to forge ahead with the more disturbing storyline. The result is a book which is not an easy or 'feel-good' read, but it is a wonderful reminder that the bonds of family transcend color, race, and social class.
