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There are currently 30 member reviews
for Happy Land
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Janine S. (Wyoming, MI)
Unknown part of black history enlightens
First, and most interestingly, the topic of this book is an unknown part of American history: a black settlement known as " The Kingdom of the Happy Land." This actual "black communal society" existed in Western North Carolina during Reconstruction. Not much is actually known as most of it has vanished, but its possibility "reflects on a curious story of a Black Appalachian utopia" as Danielle Dukin writes in her webpage, "A Black Kingdom in postbellum Appalachia." But this premise is intriguing.
Valdez starts her book in present day with a fictional relative of the founders of this kingdom going to visit her grandmother, Mother Rita. Mother Rita has called Nikki "home" as she needs help staying on her land and since Nikki is a real estate agent, Mother Rita believes Nikki can help her. The book then switches to the past with the founding "queen," Luella Bobo, of Happy Land telling her story of how this kingdom came to be. Alternating between past and present, the interlocking stories have a similar theme: achieving ownership of the land and evading unscrupulous provocateurs, though this is a lighter theme compared to the stories of two women discovering what they are capable of doing and achieving.
I enjoyed the modern story a bit more than the story of the founding of Happy Land because of the legal aspects involved in Mother Rita getting her land back. While Luella's story was essential, I just didn't resonate as well with it.
Overall, this was an enjoyable read as well as an opportunity to learn more about black history.
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Kathryn S. (St. Helena Island, SC)
Happy Land
Nikkie, a DC real estate agent, receives an unexpected – and inconvenient- request from her maternal grandmother living in North Carolina. Mother Rita urgently wants Nikki to visit her, for the first time in a long while. Nikki's first-person narrative of that visit and the ensuing events is interwoven with the first-person narrative of her great-great-great grandmother Luella who moved from South Carolina to North Carolina in the post-emancipation era. Luella helped establish a community of formerly enslaved men and women they called the Kingdom of Happy Land. The interplay of the narrative of the pioneers of the kingdom (complete with a king and queen) and that of their descendants creates an absorbing novel that explores several themes: family structure and relationships; the value of knowing of one's family roots; the significance (and fragility) of land ownership; the role that resilience and determination play in fighting injustice.
The Kingdom of Happy Land was established on property that was granted to African Americans after emancipation and has been passed down from generation to generation without a will. The present-day dilemmas facing the heirs of such property as "tenants in common" are portrayed through the struggles of the Lovejoy family to retain their land.
Readers unfamiliar with the history of the post-emancipation South and the concept of "heirs' property" will find their reading experience enhanced by a little background research on those topics.
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