The First Fig Tree - Hardcover

Glover, Vivian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312017626 ISBN 13: 9780312017620

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1988

Synopsis

As America prepares for World War II, an elderly Black woman reminisces to her great-granddaughter about her childhood as a slave and the Civil War that freed her as her stories reveal the realities of life in a segregated South

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Enhanced by the gentle cadences of black Southern speech, this quiet story episodically unfolds in rural South Carolina during World War II, when a quick, keen-eyed little girl of about seven begins a fruitful relationship with her great-grandmother Ellen, a wise and matriarchal woman whose memory can still evoke sharply painful images of the Civil War. The somnolent summer days, the lush rural setting, the deeply religious overtones, the apparent prosperity of Ellen's extended family, all serve as a muted screen through which the author views the harsh, bitterly segregated society of the 1940s, a society which in many ways parallels Ellen's days as a slave on a plantation. Black children are cruelly harassed by townspeople; a lynching is barely prevented by the area's black doctor on the condition that the innocent 18-year-old prisoner never return home. Black soldiers discharged from the armed forces, including the little girl's father, will reluctantly move North to find better opportunities for their childrenbut the move will be a painful uprooting for the child. This lyrical and evocative first novel is well balanced by the interplay between two disparate but strong personalities.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This first novel tells of an old black woman, a former slave, in the South, who develops a relationship with her young great-granddaughter through conversation. The elderly Ellen goes to live with her daughter; her great-granddaughter, whom she barely knows, moves in too while her mother works and her father fights in World War II. In stories, flashbacks, and dreams, we see Ellen's life as a slave and then mother; through the little girl's eyes, we learn about a near lynching, a new neighbor, and the vagaries of the grown-up world. In spite of its slow start, this novel rewards the persistent reader. For large collections. Janet Boyarin Blundell, Brookdale Community Coll., Lincroft, N.J.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0312017626
• ISBN 13: 9780312017620
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 222