Crossing the river

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction

Caryl Phillips' ambitious and powerful novel spans two hundred and fifty years of the African diaspora. It tracks two brothers and a sister on their separate journeys through different epochs and continents- one as a missionary to Liberia in the 1830s, one a pioneer on a wagon trail to the American West later that century, and one a GI posted to a Yorkshire village in the Second World War.

'Epic and frequently astonishing'
The Times

'Its resonance continues to deepen'
New York Times

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Here is a brilliantly imagined novel of the African diaspora by the author of Cambridge ( LJ 2/1/92) and Higher Ground ( LJ 8/89), among others. It begins in 18th-century Africa as three children--Nash, Martha, and Travis--are sold into slavery. What follows are ``their'' life stories along with excerpts from the logbook of the slave ship's captain. Nash returns to Africa as a Christian missionary in the 1830s. Martha is a former slave whom we meet as she lays dying in Denver, having failed to reach California and find her only child, taken from her years before. Travis is reincarnated as an American GI stationed in England in 1943; his story is poignantly told by the British woman he marries. Bold in its design, beautiful in its language, compelling because of its characters, this grand novel of ideas--short-listed for the 1993 Booker Prize--belongs in every fiction collection.-- Brian Kenney, Brooklyn P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Phillips's depiction of the African diaspora, spanning four eras in African American history, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

/*STARRED REVIEW*/ With each successive novel, Phillips' authority and eloquence intensify. He is adept at building unusual narrative structures, dramatically shifting points of view as he did in Cambridge , or, as in Higher Ground (1989) and here, constructing a novel out of thematically related but quite distinct "parts." But it is Phillips' ability to write about the past with such burning compassion and gripping immediacy that distinguishes him from his peers. This trenchant novel presents four stories reflecting the consequences of the African diaspora. It opens with the heart-crushing lament of an African man who has sold his children to a white slave trader in an act of "desperate foolishness." This desperation, this folly, is echoed in each tale. "The Pagan Coast," a jewel of a piece reminiscent of the best of Conrad, is a subtly told but absolutely searing account of the settlement of Liberia by freed American slaves. "West" is the elegiac story of Martha, a slave who loses her family when their master sells her to Kansas homesteaders. Old and terribly lonely, she finally escapes with a group of determined black pioneers on their way to California, but it's too late for Martha to make it to the promised land. "Crossing the River" takes the form of a slave ship captain's log, a chilling record of atrocities and abominations, while the closing section, "Somewhere in England," seems, at first, unconnected to the novel's focus. Set during the Second World War, it's a love story about an Englishwoman and an American soldier. The link is that the soldier is black, and the fate of their child is yet another manifestation of "desperate foolishness." Phillips is a genuine tragedian. His characters possess an indelible dignity, and their stories resonate with the pure, bracing voice of truth. (Reviewed Dec. 1, 1993)067940533XDonna Seaman

Kirkus Book Review

Short-listed for the 1993 Booker Prize (see Roddy Doyle above), Phillips's latest novel (Cambridge, 1992; Final Passage, 1990, etc.), like a work of sacred music, combines a ``many-tongued chorus'' limning the pervasive legacy of slavery with an eloquent celebration of survival--of arrival ``on the far bank of the river.'' An African father confesses that it was ``a desperate foolishness...the crops failed...I sold my children and soon after, the chorus of common memory began to haunt me...for two hundred and fifty years I have listened to the many-tongued chorus and occasionally among the restless voices I have discovered those of my own children. My Nash. My Martha. My Travis.'' Their life stories--like those of all slavery's children--are ``fractured, sinking hopeful roots into difficult soil.'' Relieved only by excerpts from the 18th-century diary of a slave-trader who, ``approached by a quiet fellow, bought 2 strong man-boys and a proud girl,'' these stories form the book's core. Nash is transformed into an educated slave who, freed by his idealistic, fervently Christian master, Edward Williams, goes with his encouragement to establish a mission in the newly colonized Liberia. Life there is difficult; letters home to Edward are mysteriously unanswered; and, despairing, Nash moves into the bush and marries local women. A poignant last letter--in which he explains his decision to ``live the life of the African''--is read by a grieving Edward. Meanwhile, Martha appears as a former slave whose beloved only child was sold, and who spends her life searching for her Eliza Mae, then dying--old and frail--in Denver; and Travis becomes a GI in wartime Britain, marrying a local woman with her own unhappy past before he is killed in battle. Beautifully measured writing that powerfully evokes the far- reaching realities of the African diaspora. A master work.