The Other Sister by Cheri Paris Edwards

The Other Sister

The author’s second novel The Other Sister neatly fits into the popular Urban Christian Fiction genre.  It’s the prodigal son recast as the daughter returning home with a lot of baggage stuffed with dirty laundry.  Sanita Jefferson, a preacher’s daughter left her midwest home to get an education in California but somehow sidetracked to Hollywood dreaming of stardom as a video vixen.  There she engaged in sinful conduct falling under the spell of a different kind of preacher man.  The family has its own drama when the prodigal child returns.  Unlike the biblical father James Jefferson withholds his forgiveness.  The older sister Carla copes with professional challenges and an unrequited love when the object of her affection sets eyes on Sanita.  The major and minor cast of characters are all clearly drawn including a lecherous deacon, the busy body church lady and loyal non-judgmental friends.  Sanita’s journey is a spiritual homecoming offering lessons in forgiveness, redemption, and a return to faith.

The story is told from the Third Person Omniscient point of view and what more appropriate technique for a story of faith.  Most editors and agents frown upon this writing method viewed as distracting and confusing jumping from one character’s mind to another.  Cheri Paris Edward appears to be adept in mastering the technique.  As one blogger explains:  “This style is often frowned upon, and comes under fire from many writing style authorities. Nine times out of ten at least, it’s a liability to the book. But there are a few stories that must use this style and come out better for it. Since these stories are few and far between, writers are encouraged to use careful judgment, and avoid omniscient viewpoint unless it would add something extraordinary.”

Like a soap opera, once you get into the drama and characters there’s a desire to follow till the end.  Full of conflict and surprising turns chocked with saccharin melodrama The Other Sister is an extraordinary book.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s novel Wench provides a glimpse into the life of a slave woman favored by her Master.  It depicts the complicated consequences of bearing his children and coping with the precarious possibility of falling out of favor.  It’s an unsettling tableau of 1850 Southern slave practices particularly American white slave masters vacationing without their wives rather preferring their slave concubines.  The protagonist Lizzie labors under a complicated burden torn between loving and despising her master.

The setting is the resort Tawawa House near Xenia Ohio, and where now stands Wilberforce University.  The story opens during the summer 1852.  The plot focuses on the relationship of Tennessee planter Nathan Drayle and his slave concubine Lizzie.  Other subplots delve in the lives of five other slaves particularly the women and their masters.  Plans to escape to freedom are hatched with assistance and extinguished by betrayals.

Reading Wench one cannot help but wonder:  What kind of man would lay with a woman at night then tie her up like a dog on a grounded spike the next morning as did Lizzie’s master?  Slave women were forced to comply with sexual advances by their masters on a regular basis. Consequences of resistance often came in the form of physical beatings; thus, an enormous number of slaves became concubines for these men.

Most often the masters were already bound in matrimony, which caused tension and hatred between the slave and the mistress of the house. Many “mulatto” or racially mixed children also resulted from these relations.   The “status of the child” followed that of his or her mother, the child of a white man would not be freed based upon patriarchal genealogy.  Born into slavery these children also became a sore reminder for the mistress of her husbands’ infidelity.  Undeniably those slave masters are the ancestral forbears of a great many White and African Americans.

Publisher:  Harper Collins (Amistad); New York Fiction: ISBN:  978006170647  Date:  2010, 290 pages

Pamela Samuels Young

Murder on the Down Low opens at the funeral of Maya Washington.  Mourning are her close knit girlfriends.  Maya died of AIDS infected by her down low fiancé, Eugene Nelson.  Her cousin Special Moore full of vengeful grief makes a scene vowing to make Eugene pay.  Among this circle of girlfriends are two attorneys and a detective each with their own work place challenges.  Special with the group’s help persuades Maya’s mother to bring a wrongful death action against Eugene.  Meanwhile a serial killer is targeting down low professional African American men.  Special in her uncontrollable grief mounts a campaign of harassment stalking Eugene.  The wrongful death suit takes a turn for the worst when Special is charged as the suspected serial killer against a mountain of circumstantial evidence.  Attorney Vernetta Henderson takes the lead as the girlfriends set out to prove Special’s innocence.

Anyone who enjoys the company of sophisticated ladies will love Vernetta Henderson and her crowd.  Pamela Samuels Young sketches various recognizable female personalities and their friendships while painting a faithful portrayal of the men who love them.  The author has mastered the fictional technique of raising the stakes with unexpected plot twist and turns.  In this moral story of tolerance and understanding a seemingly unrelated series of events keeps the reader wondering on the edge of their seat while the author mixes up a mystery package tying it all together in a neat little bow like denouement.

Young self-published her first novel Every Reasonable Doubt establishing her own imprint.  She told me she self-published her first novel hoping to be picked up by a major publishing house. Three block buster Essence Best Sellers later, that is no longer of interest.  Who needs the powerhouse publisher or agent?  Certainly not this author, Pamela Samuels Young is proving to be a self-publishing force.

Editors, publishers, and agents, the industry shakers and movers, the gate keepers sometime get it wrong ignoring certain talent and marketability as often the case with African American fiction writers who resort to self-publishing.  We saw it with Omar Tyree, E. Lynn Harris, Mary Morrison and others time and again.  Young is the latest in a long line of African American writers going against established industry trends.  Thanks to the Internet writers like Pamela Samuels Young rise to success no longer limited by the subjective taste of a small few.

Congressional Hearings on Islamic Terrorization

They can’t win on the issues so they run on fear. New York Republican Congressman Peter King’s attempts to demonize Islamic Americans didn’t draw the reaction he intended. The campaign pitching fear on a theme of Muslim American radicalization was met with backlash. Of the 7 witnesses only one represented law enforcement.  A dramatic moment came when Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) one of only two Muslim Congressmen was overcome with emotion as he concluded his testimony referencing a Muslim paramedic Mohammad Salman Hamdani who died heroically responding to the World Trade terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 200l. Ellison met with Hamdani’s mother before the hearing.

It seems Americans never learn. The Congressional hearing on Islamic Radicalization was an attempt at the same fear mongering and spread of misinformation seen too often in American history. Senator Joseph McCarthy stoked fears of communism with his hearings in the 1950s thus coining the phrase, McCarthyism, making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. We saw the same fear mongering when the Japanese were rounded and placed in detention camps. And when Chinese men were deported without due process while enduring a century plus of racist framing and large scale discrimination. Blacks, Latinos, and now Islamic Americans have all come under this type of attack with prevailing stereotypes and discrimination, and misinformation.

While Republicans ignore history using the same old playbook, it would behoove Americans to remember and pay attention. Smith’s hearing might have been better served inquiring into all home grown terrorism rather than trying to demonize one ethnic group.   Why are anti abortion activist bombing clinics and assassinating doctors? Why are White Supremacist organizations infiltrating the Tea Party or planting a roadside bombs along a MLK parade route? Congressman King chose to discredit non-Muslim acts of terrorism, including hate crimes.

The Washington Post Fact Checker assigned two Pinnochios to Peter King’s facts, meaning:  Significant omissions and/or exaggerations and possible factual errors. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people.

Voters take heed.  The Republican playbook is getting old.  Unfortunately the same old plays still work:  lies and disinformation without evidence.

The GOP vs. Organized Labor: Swinging Back

The recent events in Madison Wisconsin may indicate the pendulum is swinging back. Support for organized labor and union membership has been on the decline for the past 30 years since Ronald Reagan busted PATCO, and States enactment of right to work laws. At the same time a shrinking middle class and stagnant wages with concentrated wealth held by a few is a reminder of the 19th Century robber barons. It’s all beginning to add up on the average household budget, and the public is finally beginning to realize who’s to blame. One wonders whether they will say “enough” and answer the call to solidarity.

The Governors attempt to label public employees as another privileged special interest illustrates yet again Republican artful efforts at distorting the truth and spreading misinformation. Despite union concessions on wages and benefits Wisconsin Governor Scott demands State employees surrender all collective bargaining rights except on wages. The Tea Party believing the country has been hijacked were shouting to take back the country have unwittingly become the Koch Brother puppets. Their concern should be in replacing the jobs shipped abroad. The country hasn’t gone anywhere. The same can’t be said of jobs.

Public employees did not cause budgetary distress yet they bear the burden of sacrifice while the wealthy and their corporate interest benefit  with tax cuts. Since George Bush’s stolen election this strategy of misinformation has conned middle class America. Sucker punched the battered American worker has been knocked down but not out. Now will he get up and come back swinging?

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