Sharon Ewell Foster
Passing by Samaria (2000)
Author: Sharon Ewell Foster
Genre: Literary/Christian (Historical)
Plot Summary:
When 18 year old Alena discovers the lynched body of her childhood friend, her innocence of racism is quickly shattered. Everyone knows that the white sheriff, Eric Bates, is behind this crime, but to say so out loud would be foolish and dangerous. Outspoken Alena is yet outraged when her well-meaning parents send her north to Chicago to live with her beloved Aunt Patrice, in what she perceives as punishment for speaking the truth. While transplanted Alena spirals into withdrawal and self-pity, a violent riot erupts across Chicago. WWI is coming to an end, and the divisive issues of racism and segregation have brought the city to a contentious boiling point. The immediacy of the riots finally cracks Alena's shell, and she, Aunt Patrice, and others come together to tend to the hurt and hungry in what has suddenly transformed from an urban neighborhood to a militarized war zone. Alena finally begins to forgive her parents and opens her heart for receiving God's love as well as those around her, quickly falling in love with her steady Chicago admirer, Major James Pittman. After the riots, she plans a homecoming visit to Mississippi to reconcile with her parents and bring news of her engagement. Sheriff Bates awaits her arrival though, with no intention of letting her stir the town with any bold ideas of racial equality. SPOILER: Bates' heinous plans are interrupted in a serendipitous "hunting" incident, and the sheriff's death becomes an opportunity for the town to unite. The biggest challenge comes when Alena and her parents must follow God's will and extend the olive branch of forgiveness and compassion to the family Bates left behind.
Geographical Setting: Mississippi and Chicago
Time Period: 1919
Appeal Characteristics:
This book was a Christy Award winner (2001) for best first novel, and does indeed show a lot of promise. The protagonist Alena, who starts out one-dimensional, slowly deepens into someone the reader can empathize with and relate to. In addition, there are many delightful secondary characters, and their stories often invite a bit of humor or distraction. While it would be easy to reduce Bates to a stock character, Foster manages to create a more complex, multi-faceted individual, which makes his forgiveness possible. Largely character-driven, world events and calamities eventually make their way into the story, bringing plot twists and doses of the harsh reality of the times into what would otherwise flatten into a simple love story. The author lets the setting of her novel - segregated early 20th century America - leave it's mark, as she weaves many historical details into the tale. Oftentimes this is accomplished through the abundance of dialogue, though she also references the Chicago Tribune, a source which the characters rely on for news. At one point Foster refers to some appalling statistics of lynching from 1882 through 1919 as reported by the Hampton Institute and Library of Congress, which seems a bit heavy-handed, but not out of context of the story. There is an abundance of earnest prayer, moral exhortation, and hymnal singing as the characters attempt to find peace and understanding through God, in a world of conflict and pain.
Read-alikes: Readers who liked Passing by Samaria's interwoven narratives and historical look at African-Americans and their faith might be interested in Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray's One More River to Cross, the first book in a trilogy about the first black Mormon missionaries. For a more contemporary story about African-American women dealing with faith-testing and forgiveness, try Stacy Hawkins Adams' Nothing but the Right Thing. Those who enjoyed seeing Alena and James come together through faith in spite of problems might look at T. D. Jakes' Not Easily Broken, which follows Dave and Clarice Johnson as they try to heal their troubled marriage. Readers moved by Foster's writing style and depiction of life changing experiences should also try her novel Ain't No River, where successful D.C. lawyer Garvin Daniels has to contend with a racist supervisor and a young man named GoGo who seems to be after Garvin's grandmother's money. Finally, for readers who liked the inspirational story of a young woman coming of age in Chicago told through omniscient narration, there is Meant to Be by Rita Coburn Whack, whose ambitious heroine struggles with her love life and family history in the 1970s. Your Blues Ain't Like Mine (Bebe Moore Campbell) is racially charged novel set in Mississippi in 1955, during the early period of Civil Rights, fictionalizing the story of Emmett Till. Mama Flora's Family (Alex Haley and David Stevens), is a novel which teaches civil rights history through narrative voice much like Foster. Haley, author of Roots, and Stevens, who finishes the novel after Haley's death, present an ongoing generational look at a family struggling with murder, injustice and hope for a better life from the time period of 1912 through current day. The Stamp of Glory: A Novel of the Abolitionist Movement (Tim Stafford) is a historically accurate first novel in a family saga interspersing real Christian figures and events in a fiction chronicle of a family during the abolitionist movement. Another mulit-generaltional saga by Haley, Queen also explores racial inequality in antebellum south, as is Roots, which begins even more historically in Africa. Angela Benson writes similar inspirational southern African-American romances - try Abiding Hope or Awakening Mercy, both of which feature strong characters working through trying circumstances with faith and courage. If the reader just really enjoyed this author and wants more Foster, steer them past her second novel (Riding Through Shadows) and instead offer her third, Passing Into Light. With more spirituality and tales of love and romance, written to entertain and uplift.
Red Flags: Disturbing accounts of racism, lynchings and KKK-style violence
|top|
|
