Red River: Summary and book reviews of Red River by Lalita Tademy, plus links to an excerpt from Red River and a biography of Lalita Tademy.

Come closer. This is not a story to go down easy, and the backwash still got hold of us today. The history of a family. The history of a country. From bondage to the joy of freedom…and then back into darkness, so fearsome that don't nobody want to talk about the scary time. 1873. Wasn't no riot like they say. It was a massacre... -From Red River. Hailed as "powerful," "accomplished," and "spellbinding," Lalita Tademy's first novel Cane River was a New York Times bestseller and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection. Now with her evocative, luminous style and painstaking research, she takes her family's story even further, back to a little-chronicled, deliberately-forgotten time...and the struggle of three extraordinary generations of African-American men to forge brutal injustice and shattered promise into a limitless future for their children... Red River. For the newly-freed black residents of Colfax, Louisiana, the beginning of Reconstruction promised them the right to vote, own property-and at last control their own lives. Tademy saw a chance to start a school for his children and neighbors. His friend Israel Smith was determined to start a community business and gain economic freedom. But in the space of a day, marauding whites would "take back" Colfax in one of the deadliest cases of racial violence in the South. In the bitter aftermath, Sam and Israel's fight to recover and build their dreams will draw on the best they and their families have to give - and the worst they couldn't have foreseen. Sam's hidden resilience will make him an unexpected leader, even as it puts his conscience and life on the line. Israel finds ironic success - and the bitterest of betrayals. And their greatest challenge will be to pass on to their sons and grandsons a proud heritage never forgotten - and the strength to meet the demands of the past and future in their own unique ways. An unforgettable achievement, a history brought to vibrant life through one of the most memorable families in fiction, Red River is about fathers and sons, husbands and wives-and the hopeful, heartbreaking choices we all must make to claim the legacy that is ours.

BookBrowse

A gripping generational saga covering 60 years of Tademy's family's history up until the 1930s, as they struggle against poverty, racial attacks, and natural disasters to establish secure lives for themselves.  (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

Full Review (1042 words).

Media Reviews

Historical Novels Review - Nancy J. Attwell Editor's Choice. It is accomplishment enough to write a novel that so poignantly exposes the indignities endured by one group of people during one small period of history, but the author’s stunning achievement is to tell a story that, despite its specificity of time, place, and race, universalizes both the suffering and the sacrifice. More than a family saga, Red River is a clear glass that illuminates the misery of injustice and the magnificence of sacrifice, wherever they are found. Bravo!   Kirkus Reviews The first half of the book sheds light on an overlooked event, and is rife with palpable tension, but the author tries to cram far too much history and family drama into the second half. What starts as a page-turner becomes an overblown saga.   Booklist - Vanessa Bush Tademy brings drama and pathos to an epic account of her family history and a shameful account of our nation's history..[she] is establishing herself as a compelling chronicler of the complex history of slavery and race in America.   Library Journal This engrossing and eyeopening emotional family saga spans several generations while bringing an African American perspective to a very painful time in U.S. history. Strongly recommended.   Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Combining family anecdotes with historical research and a rich imagination, Tademy crafts another American epic.   The Scotsman - Chitira Ramaswarmy Tademy's bold, controlled account of these horrific events never shies away from the gruesome facts, or becomes overwrought, which is a remarkable feat considering her emotional attachment to the story and its characters. Sam and his magnificent wife Polly are the most well-drawn characters in a book which tends to become overcrowded with relatives ...... The same fate occasionally befalls Tademy's writing, which verges on clumsiness when it dips in and out of the African-American voice and a more neutral authorial style that just isn't as strong. Still, in such a powerful account of inequality, injustice, violence and grim determination, these are small concerns. That Tademy has rewritten the history books and exposed the so-called "riot" for what it really was - the massacre of innocent black men by white men who acted with complete impunity - marks this out as a book of grave importance.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by Honored in South Carolina
Your Ancestors must be proud of you!
I've read both of your books. I was taken back in history and gone the journey with you and yours. I have never heard of the "Massacre" until I picked up Red River. Your books should be on everyone's personal bookshelf. I will share these with...   Read More

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