"Set in the Caribbean after the Slavery Abolition Act, this lucid, luminous debut follows a mother’s odyssey to find the five children who were taken from her during slavery."
Hope, love, motherhood, the refusal to be defined by the horrors of slavery, and the gap between imagined freedom and freedom as it is, Eleanor Shearer’s River Sing Me Home paints a vivid, poignant picture of “the real power of slavery; the long shadow it could cast after its formal end.” With an engaging clarity to the plot and a soul-stirring writing style, Rachel’s courageous journey from Barbados to British Guiana and Trinidad makes for a book you’ll be loath to put aside as it tells a story of freedom that lingers long in the heart.
Barbados, 1834. The Emancipation Act may have put an end to slavery, but the former enslaved workers of Providence plantation were forced to work for the master for a further six years: “Freedom was just another name for the life they had always lived.” And so Rachel flees, desperate to find her five surviving children who were sold to other plantations. After finding refuge with Mama B, a selfless, wise matriarch who’s helped countless runaways, Rachel heads to Bridgetown, capital of Barbados, to seek Mary Grace.
But Rachel has four more children to find, and won’t give up her search, even when the trails run cold. The anguish of her children being taken is palpable, and now she’s torn between trying to find Cherry Jane in Barbados, and searching for her sons Micah and Thomas Augustus in Demerara, and her daughter Mercy in Trinidad. Fuelled by “a harsh, unforgiving will, bent, but not broken by slavery” she resolves to cross the sea to “put an ocean between herself and her old master”.
Though Demerara, a historic region that’s now part of Guyana, is very different from Barbados, Rachel discerns that “Everywhere, the long shadow of slavery was the same”, and we experience this legacy in Rachel’s shoes, to the beat of her heart, from the forests, rivers, runaway settlements and indigenous villages of British Guiana, to “feverish, stifling” Port of Spain in Trinidad.
Rachel’s story is an ode to the love that can be found in a cruel world “if you know where to look”, and River Sing Me Home is a truly dazzling debut that explores “the parts of us that cannot be destroyed”.
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
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Rachel's quest is driven by a mother's love for what was taken from her. The indomitable desire to reunite her family wills the reader to root for her in her search.
River Sing Me Home is about the passionate strength of a mother's love for her children and her desire to find them even when fearful for her own freedom. After a fast-paced opening creating an ongoing sense of trepidation for her recapture that carries throughout the novel, Rachel encounters help in the form of others who recognise the desperation in her search. Finding kindness from a cast of supporting characters we follow her journey through the streets of Bridgetown in Barbados, the Demerara river and forests of British Guiana and onto the plantations of Trinidad. The love she feels for her children is evident in the narrative, as is the compassion of the companions joining her during her quest.... Read Full Review
Join Rachel's tearjerking quest to find her children as slavery is abolished in this beautiful book about fractured families, freedom, loss and love.
The story begins in the Providence Plantation in Barbados 1834 and the law says her people are free. The end of slavery is here and Rachel is desperate to find her children. Except it's not quite over; slavery continues to cast its shadow long after it's formal end.
No longer slaves, they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.
We hear Rachel's unique voice spoken in her dialect throughout the book and as she shares her story with us, we are transported to Barbados. We wonder at her strength. We mourn her 11 "pickney" with her. Every loss, every life, every hole in her heart as her children were wrenched away from her.... Read Full Review
A gripping and tragic tale contrasting the evil and cruelty of slavery with hope and love.
This is a gripping story set in the Caribbean as slavery ended in England. There are terrible stories of individual slaves told, as Rachel, a 40 year old field hand runs away as slavery was abolished in England to find her surviving children, who were all sold or had died. The hunt takes us from Barbados to Demerara and Trinidad. As expected, the stories are harrowing, from one who at the age of 16 joined the rebellion for freedom at the nominal end of slavery to another, who is a selective mute after unstated but implied atrocities committed against her. The book, while fiction, has an element of a history lesson as each child has taken a different path to seek and fight for freedom in a time of extreme injustice.... Read Full Review
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