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The Wedding Gift
Author:
Bodden, Marlen Suyapa
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Class:
Fiction
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: PS3602.O
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ISBN-13: 9781250026385
LCCN: 2013013660
Imprint: St. Martin's Press
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Pub Date: 09/24/2013
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $25.99
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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305 pages ; 25 cm
H 9.43",
W 6.43",
D 1.11",
1.14 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
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Bibliographies:
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Awards:
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Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews
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Starred Reviews:
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Publishers Weekly
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TIPS Subjects:
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Historical Fiction
African American & Black
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BISAC Subjects: |
FICTION / Historical / General
FICTION / African American & Black / Historical
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LC Subjects:
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Enslaved persons, Fiction
Fathers and daughters, Fiction
Friendship, Fiction
Gifts, Fiction
Sisters, Fiction
Slavery, Fiction
Slaves, Fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Father-daughter relationship, Fiction
Friendship, Fiction
Gifts, Fiction
Sisters, Fiction
Slavery, Fiction
Slaves, Fiction
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Reading Programs: |
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| Annotations |
| Publisher Annotations | 06/07/2013 |
| When Cornelius Allen gives his daughter Clarissa's hand in marriage, he presents her with a wedding gift: the young slave she grew up with, Sarah. Sarah is also Allen's daughter and Clarissa's sister, a product of his longtime relationship with his house slave, Emmeline. When Clarissa's husband suspects that their newborn son is illegitimate, Clarissa and Sarah are sent back to her parents, Cornelius and Theodora, in shame, setting in motion a series of events that will destroy this once powerful family. Told through alternating viewpoints of Sarah and Theodora Allen, Cornelius' wife, 'The Wedding Gift' is a stunning novel that shows where the complicated and compelling bonds and relationships between women explored in novels like 'The Help' and 'The Secret Life of Bees' began. It is an intimate portrait that shows where this particular American story and dynamic all started and will leave readers breathless. |
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| Starred Reviews: |
| Publishers Weekly | 08/19/2013 |
| In this stunning debut, Marlen Suyapa Bodden effortlessly transports the reader to 1852 Alabama, where slavery and racism may rule the day, but everything isn't as black and white as it may seem. Sixteen-year-old Sarah Campbell is a housemaid to her half-sister Clarissa. Both daughters of plantation owner Mr. Allen, they secretly reject the roles they are expected to play. Sarah yearns for the day when she can escape slavery, while Clarissa is disinterested in her father's wishes for her to marry young and become mistress of her own plantation. But then Clarissa unexpectedly becomes pregnant before she's wed--changing the trajectory of both girls' lives. Bodden weaves a page-turning tangled web of misogyny, greed, scandal and violence in this powerful story about races colliding against the backdrop of America's darkest era. (Sept.). 320p. Web-Exclusive Review. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2013. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| Booklist | 09/01/2013 |
| In her first novel, lawyer Bodden draws on an immense amount of historical knowledge to present a tale about life in pre-Civil War Alabama that is as educational as it is compelling. Clarissa is the legitimate daughter of Cornelius Allen, a wealthy plantation owner. Sarah is also Allen's daughter, the product of his long-standing extramarital affair with Emmeline, his beautiful house slave. Sarah narrates the novel in turns with Theodora, Allen's wife, who is frustrated by her own lack of agency. Theodora secretly teaches Sarah to read and write, sharpening Sarah's hunger for liberty. When flippant Clarissa gets married, Sarah is given to her as a gift, sparking events that upend life at the Allen plantation. Bodden writes with delicacy, allowing layers of meaning to unfold slowly, and her portrayal of the horrors of slave life is both unflinching and purposeful. The connections developed between Clarissa and Sarah illustrate the complex sorrows of tyranny, and the ecstasy of triumphing over oppression. An inspiring read for historical-fiction fans, especially those who like strong female narrators. Peckham, Amber. 320p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2013. |
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| Kirkus Reviews | 08/15/2013 |
| A debut novel about slaves and masters, mistresses and wives, set in antebellum Alabama. Bodden's debut features two narrators: Sarah Campbell, a young mulatto slave, and Theodora, wife of Cornelius Allen, owner of Allen Estates, a large cotton plantation worked by hundreds of slaves. Sarah is Allen's daughter by his longtime slave mistress, Emmeline. Theodora, a gentlewoman, is at first in love with her new husband, but after the birth of their children (the youngest, Clarissa, is born shortly after Sarah), a combination of his alcoholism, increasingly violent behavior and infidelity quickly sours their marriage, and she takes refuge in the arts and her secret correspondence with a handsome poet. When Allen marries Clarissa off to Cromwell, a brutal plantation owner who can advance Allen's business interests (as a sub rosa investor in the now-illegal slave ships), the stage is set for melodrama. Clarissa has become pregnant by a rival suitor, and after a hurried wedding, Cromwell agrees, in return for financial concessions, to acknowledge the child as his. He changes his mind when he realizes, at Clarissa's "premature" birthing of a full-term son, that he cannot possibly be the father, and he sends Clarissa back home in disgrace. Meanwhile, Sarah, whom Cromwell seeks to coerce into concubinage as Allen did her mother, plots her escape. Thanks to Theodora's tutoring, she learned to read and write and is an excellent forger of slave passes. Upon Clarissa's return to Allen Estates, her enraged father takes away her child, and she dies of childbed fever shortly thereafter, whereupon Allen, knowing his good name is tarnished all over the South, drinks himself to death. As Theodora seeks her missing grandson, Cromwell threatens to sue and ruin the entire family. Sarah, in men's disguise, is making her way inexorably toward the port of Mobile, dodging slave catchers at every turn. Plodding prose, leaden dialogue and a gratuitous trick ending undermine what is otherwise a fraught and entertaining story enhanced with convincing period detail. 320pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2013. |
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| Library Journal | 09/06/2013 |
| After selling over 150,000 copies, this debut Kindle original about slavery in the American South was picked up by a major publisher, turning its author, a New York City Legal Aid lawyer, into a self-publishing success. Highlighting the dependent status of women, especially slaves, in the 19th century, the story is told from the perspectives of two different women subject to the whims of cotton plantation owner Cornelius Allen-Sarah, his mulatto daughter whose mother is a house slave forced to visit his bed at night, and Theodora Allen, his highly educated wife, who inadvertently teaches Sarah to read and write. Forced to be both slave and playmate (and, eventually, wedding gift) to frivolous Clarissa, Cornelius's legitimate daughter, Sarah develops from a young age a powerful desire to escape from slavery and single-mindedly pursues her goal. Verdict Though passionate, this story is not an historical romance. Women's relationships, thoughts, and conversations predominate in this novel about slavery and human rights, making it a good choice for readers who like a fast-paced historical story with a clear and relevant theme (for example, Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Wench). [See Prepub Alert, 3/18/13; library marketing.]-Laurie Cavanaugh, Holmes P.L., Halifax, MA. 320p. LJ Xpress Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013. |
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| Library Journal Prepub Alert | 03/18/2013 |
| Not every debut author sells thousands of copies of her self-published novel online before it's snapped up by a major publisher, and not every debut author gets blurbed by Tom Wolfe and Henry Louis Gates Jr. Bodden, a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society in New York, has managed both. Her story opens in the antebellum South with Cornelius Allen giving his newly married daughter Clarissa the slave girl Sarah, Allen's daughter by his house slave and hence Clarissa's sister. Both are sent home in shame when Clarissa's husband doubts the paternity of his newborn son. Related alternately by Sarah and, surprisingly, Cornelius's wife, Theodora; with a big book-club push. 320p. LJ Prepub Alert Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013. |
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