Cane River - Lalita Tademy

Cane River tells the story of four generations of women living in Louisiana. Beginning with Elisabeth, a black slave, the generations become progressively lighter as each successive woman has children - voluntarily, and often involuntarily - with the French men who own the land they live and work on. This fiction book is based on author Tademy's real-life family, and is the result of years of pain-staking research. Half-way through the novel, slavery is abolished. The women then struggle to obtain land and a better life for the successive generations. There are countless themes throughout the book - family and woman's place in it, miscegenation - laws preventing the marrying of white and black - and thus inheritance by black children, forced sexual relations between masters and slaves, the attempts by lighter blacks to pass in white society - and the consequences of such action, the dispersion of family caused by the selling off of children, the concept of love and the French influence in Louisiana. Luckily, Tademy placed a family tree at the beginning of the book which proved quite useful as I tried to keep all the names straight. This is a touching book filled with amazing stories. It is a worthy Oprah book selection about survival and the strength of women and family in trying and tragic times.