Absalom's Daughters
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Average rating4
15
Ratings1
Average rating4
A spellbinding debut about half sisters, one black and one white, on a 1950s road trip through the American South Self-educated and brown-skinned, Cassie works full time in her grandmother’s laundry in rural Mississippi. Illiterate and white, Judith falls for “colored music” and dreams of life as a big city radio star. These teenaged girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father’s inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes to a road trip together to claim what’s rightly theirs. In an old junk car, with a frying pan, a ham, and a few dollars hidden in a shoe, they set off through the American Deep South of the 1950s, a bewitchingly beautiful landscape as well as one bedeviled by racial strife and violence. Suzanne Feldman's Absalom’s Daughters combines the buddy movie, the coming-of-age tale, and a dash of magical realism to enthrall and move us with an unforgettable, illuminating novel.
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Absalom's Daughters is a tale of self-discovery and the bonds between family members told through the lens of half-sisters, one black, one white, in the 1950s American South. The story shines on light on some of the ways in which racial tensions in America throughout history deeply affect the lives of individuals, which forces the reader to think about the issue while at the same time enjoying the sweet story of two young sisters sticking together through thick and thin. There is one fantastical element to the novel which feels slightly out of place in the otherwise realistic setting, but it serves a poignant purpose. Absalom's Daughters is an easy read that is quite relevant to current times despite its historical setting.
