The day belonged to the dead, and our lamenting floated down the worn steps of Calvary Baptist Church, past grave markers and upturned stones, drifted down Chestnut Street and onto Main, around the bend, and down into the next hollow. From where I sat on the front pew, I heard Pastor Jones scream...
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It has recently come to my attention that I must make it clear at the beginning of my reviews that I received this book for free from Author Marketing Experts. I have not been paid for doing this and all opinions are my own. I am Bookshop.org affiliated, which means I earn a very small amount of money if you buy from there using my direct link. Although I include purchase links to Amazon, I am not affiliated with them. I include them to make it easy for you to navigate to them if you so wish.
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The Blurb
This moving work of African American women's fiction honors resilience, belonging, and the complicated inheritance of love.
Nestled in the quiet beauty of New Harmony, South Carolina, a family saga unfolds against the backdrop of the deep-seated memories of Jim Crow in the 1950s. Margaret grows up in a family where she learns what it means to be both "colored" and female—first as a daughter discovering the harsh injustices around her, and later as a mother fighting to protect her own. When violence tears her world apart, the murder of her son tests the limits of her love, faith, and resilience.
As Margaret reckons with loss, this story of small-town grief turns toward community, memory, and the fragments of hope found in storytelling. This stunning work of literary fiction explores themes of cultural heritage and long-held family secrets that shape her understanding of the past— and guide her toward healing in the present. The result is a thought-provoking, poignant, emotional portrait of one woman refusing to be erased.
In a blend of Southern and historical fiction based on real-life themes, New Harmony illuminates the lived experiences of black women in the Jim Crow South.
New Harmony: A Mother's Story of Love and Loss is Pettiway's debut novel and the first in a series of thematically linked works exploring community, identity, and the enduring bonds of family.
Come home to New Harmony— where healing begins.
My Review
There is so much to unpack in this amazing story that I hardly know where to start.
The book begins with the main character, Margaret, grieving for her murdered teenage son during the 1940s in America's South Carolina. The narrative then moves back in time to the late 19th century and we follow Margaret from childhood. We walk beside her as she encounters injustice, bigotry and racism. However, we also rejoice with her as she falls in love, gives birth to her children and ultimately finds inner peace. That's not a spoiler as it is obvious that is where the book is heading from the very beginning.
We see her grow from child to woman; we watch her experience both joy and heartbreak, and it was impossible not to feel empathy for this character. She carries the burden of her forebears who were enslaved on the very plantation where she still lives. She is shored up by her faith and it was this, alongside the love and support of her family and friends, which enabled her to emotionally survive.
The author has put together a powerful story with such multi-faceted characters that I felt that I knew these people personally. I was slightly bereft when I turned the final page and had to leave them behind.
The novel contains a good mix of prose and dialogue, both of which move the story on at an appropriate pace. The setting is atmospheric — the superiority in the Big House is palpable, especially when contrasted with Margaret's loving home.
The book provoked quite a reaction in me, just as an excellent and well-written book should do. I was angered on behalf of Margaret and her friends and family when they experienced such bigotry and racism.
This was a five-star read for me. Whilst I found the ending a little long-winded, I nonetheless felt it deserved a top-score rating for the powerful emotion that it caused in me as a reader. It was an excellent book to read and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Please be aware that the book contains outdated derogatory language which was common to the time period.
Book Details
ISBN: 979 8989182053
Publisher: Melshin Press
Formats: e-book, hardback and paperback
No. of Pages: 374 (paperback)
Purchase Links
About the Author
Leon E. Pettiway, Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee), the Venerable Lobzang Dorje, is Professor Emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has conducted research that integrates geographical and criminological theories to explain crime patterns in urban areas. In that regard, he has published articles on the impact of race and ghettoization on patterns of crime participation, the role of environmental and individual factors in arson, the relationship between an individual's drug use and criminal participation in the formation of crime partnerships, and the criminal decision-making process of addicts and nonusers in light of various environmental cues. Upon the conclusion of a major field research project funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, he completed Honey, Honey, Miss Thang: Being Black, Gay, and on the Streets, a Finalist for the 9th Annual Lambda Literary Award (Temple University Press), which examined the lives of drug addicted, gay transgender women who commit a variety of crimes, and Workin' It: Women Living Through Drugs and Crime (Temple University Press) which chronicled the drug use and crime participation of a group of inner-city women. Before his retirement, his intellectual work centered on the construction of knowledge and how Eastern and Western philosophical traditions might be integrated into criminological theory and the administration of justice. His upcoming publication, Only for the Brave at Heart: Essays Rethinking Race, Crime, and Justice, critiques the ways the American mind has thought about race, crime, and justice. In using the Buddhist and Afrocentric perspectives as a vehicle for social commentary, he provides a path to liberate our thoughts concerning these important issues.
He is a fully ordained Buddhist monk, one of only a handful of African-American monks in the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In retirement, he focuses his attention on his spiritual practice, teaching Buddhism, and writing.
You can also find Leon at:
(ARC and media courtesy of Author Marketing Experts)
(author photo courtesy of the author's website)
(author bio courtesy of African American Literature Book Club)
(all opinions are my own)
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