I LOVE Berniece McFadden's work! I've read all 5 of her works. I believe I even reviewed of few of them at Da Corner, but her latest "Nowhere Is A Place" does not disappoint!
Throughout McFadden's work she establishes a strong connection between her characters present situation and their ancestral past. I love the way she builds a bridge between past and present one life event at a time until the past and present meet face-to-face.
"Nowhere..." was about a tense mother/daughter relationship. The daughter invites her mother on a cross-country car trip. The mother agrees to go. The story unfolds as the daughter expalins that she is writing a book and wants to record her mothers life. She asks her mother to tell all the old stories while taking this journey across the country. Now this could have been very confusing, a book about someone writing a book. And when the mother was telling the stories, obviously she was telling of the past and this again could have been very difficult to decipher. McFadden MASTERFULLY handled both. All of the memories were italicized making it easy to tell the past from the present. And the transitions between the 2 were very natural and she did not awkwardly break her rhythm.The bridge that she built spanned slavery and present bringing the 2 together in a meeting that the daughter orchestrated between her mother and her mother's long lost aunt.
This was a fantastic read. I highly recommend it!
