November 10, 2008
In Berry’s first novel, Redemption Song
, a contemporary love story unfolds as a pair of young strangers share reading the only extant copy of a slave narrative, the work of a woman who experienced deep love for a fellow slave and savage treatment from her owner. “When I named the evil slave owner,” Berry explains in this memoir, referring to her novel, “I gave him the name of the man who owned the plantation that my family had lived on.” Berry’s mother had told her that “Granddaddy said John Hunn was a good man,” but Berry met such reports with utter disbelief. Her memoir is an act of contrition toward “the man whose name I tried to tarnish” as well as a journey of self-discovery and self-education as she uncovers the historical Hunn—indeed, “a good man.... a Quaker who risked life and limb in the fight for abolition” and “the southernmost conductor of the Underground Railroad.” Berry weaves abolitionist history with autobiography (her single mother’s struggle to raise a family of seven children; her own finding “a way out of poverty through education”). Berry’s competently researched book, with its sprinklings of history, folklore and scripture along with a motivational thrust (“We are all born with a purpose, a journey that must be completed”), provide an accessible, readable introduction for others “saddened... that none of this history had been made part of my education.”
November 1, 2008
Reminiscent of Edward Ball's "Slaves in the Family", this work by novelist and motivational speaker Berry ("Redemption Song") reveals the bonds that unite whites and African Americans. She traces their joint history from slavery through the Civil Rights Movement and to the present day.
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
December 1, 2008
Berry explores her personal journey of broader racial understanding since she wrote the novel Redemption Song in 2000. Despite her mothers stories to the contrary, Berry insisted on portraying an evil slave master based on a real man, John Hunn, who owned the farm where her great-grandfather worked. When she learned that Hunn had actually helped runaway slaves, Berry was forced to reexamine many of her ideas on race, acknowledging a race pride that had evolved into arrogance and an arrogance that had evolved into exclusion. Berry ponders the long journey from slavery to emancipation and the notion of freedom as something that is mental and emotional as well as physical. Interspersing her familys history with that of the broader African American population, Berry writes of getting past the bitterness of poverty and racism to appreciate the complexities of American slavery and the need to present more nuanced and balanced portraits of race relations.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)
March 1, 2009
In researching this memoir, poet/novelist Berry discovered that many of her assumptions about her African American family's history were incorrect. In particular, the Delaware man who owned the farm where her relatives lived was no villainhe was an active member of the abolitionist movement who risked everything to preserve blacks from slavery. Historians and the general public will love this provocative story.L.M.
Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.