A Long Way from Home

Rating:
Summary: great read
Review: I think this is a great book and it is very easy to get swept away with the details. The author explores the characters and the emotions. You actually get to know these people, instead of skimming. It a book about the south and slavery and how slavery is passed on and overcomed. Never a dull moment and I strongly recommend it and "Black Boy by Richard Wright."

Rating:
Summary: She's Done It Again!!!
Review: I thought it didn't get any better than "Big Girls Don't Cry," but "A Long Way From Home" should be given 6 stars. This book was so easy to read and often left you feeling like you were apart of the Madison plantation. Connie Briscoe's characters Susie, Clara, Susan and Ellen are displayed in away that you feel their grief, as well as sorrow. I look forward to future novels. EXCELLENT JOB.

Rating:
Summary: A long ways from "Big Girls Don't Cry".
Review: I thought the book to be an excellent and uplifting read. I was a little disappointed with "Big Girls Don't Cry." That particular book was definately not one of her best pieces of work. "A Long Ways From Home" reminded me of a Black version of "Gone With The Wind", only this time from a slaves perspective. Not many black authors write from a historical perspective. Connie Briscoe paid tribute to her ancestors by detailing the harshness and brutatily that slaves often endured. A key point that was referenced in the book was the differences in mentality between the house slaves and the field hands. The lighter skinned house slaves were preferred over the darker skinned field hands. House slaves often emulated their white masters as thinking themselves superior simply because of their skin color. The author mentioned at the end of the book that part of the story was fact and fiction. She had to put herself in her great-great-great aunt and grandmother's position and write based on how they must've felt growing up in those turbulent and rough times. I enojoyed this book immensley, and I look forward to reading more of Ms. Briscoe's work.

Rating:
Summary: A long ways from "Big Girls Don't Cry".
Review: I thought the book to be an excellent and uplifting read. I was a little disappointed with "Big Girls Don't Cry." That particular book was definately not one of her best pieces of work. "A Long Ways From Home" reminded me of a Black version of "Gone With The Wind", only this time from a slaves perspective. Not many black authors write from a historical perspective. Connie Briscoe paid tribute to her ancestors by detailing the harshness and brutatily that slaves often endured. A key point that was referenced in the book was the differences in mentality between the house slaves and the field hands. The lighter skinned house slaves were preferred over the darker skinned field hands. House slaves often emulated their white masters as thinking themselves superior simply because of their skin color. The author mentioned at the end of the book that part of the story was fact and fiction. She had to put herself in her great-great-great aunt and grandmother's position and write based on how they must've felt growing up in those turbulent and rough times. I enojoyed this book immensley, and I look forward to reading more of Ms. Briscoe's work.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: It took a while, but when it got started I could not put the book down. The slave experience has many facets, and this one is very rarely explored. Just normal, every day people and the compromises they make in order to survive. It is a book I am pushing my 12 year old daughter to read so that we can discuss it. Thank you Connie Briscoe.

Rating:
Summary: Let There Be Light and Connie Shines
Review: Let there be light and Connie shines No matter the pain and heartache of slavery, many african-americans can find their story unfolding in Connie Briscoe's latest novel. The characters are genuine in their struggle, affection, and courage. They are torn between the safe harbor of plantation and the unfamiliar taste of freedom. You can see her characters come alive through the words of a writer who could only imagine what it took to endure the mental anguish of America's greatest stain. To say that the lash of slavery was harder than the mental torment of not knowing what someone else's whim could bring, is not to know the whole story of slavery in America. It wasn't just the toil in the fields of cotton or tabacco, nor the necessity of a civil war, it was a servitude that has no equal in modern times. The fabric of this country is forever stained with slavery. A stain that cannot be relinquished admist the signature of presidents and other so-called American heroes. Connie focuses the lens of period research, family stories, and fiction to shed new light on those whose seeds are unyielding in a better place 'A LONG WAY FROM HOME.'. This is a must read for anyone of us who thinks that our story begins and ends with Roots.

Rating:
Summary: A Different Perspective On Slavery!
Review: Set in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, A Long Way from Home is a multigenerational story of slavery, freedom, and the indestructible bond of love and family, witnessed through the lives of three memorable African-American women: Susie, her daughter Clara, and her granddaughter, Susan.

A Long Way From Home by Connie Briscoe while fictional is based on Briscoe's female ancestors who were house slaves at Montpelier, the plantation of Dolly and James Madison. Because the book details the lives of women who were house slaves vs. Field slaves one is provided a different perspective on an often overlooked group of people who did exist...and it appears had different ideas about slavery and freedom. Which to me is not farfetched or any different from what many of us experience today. Even though we can leave...we often stay in situations such as relationships, jobs, etc. because of the security they provide. We're often times afraid of the unknown and as such seek comfort and a false sense of relief from that which we know. Additionally, A Long Way From Home showed that subtle divisions existed among country slaves and city slaves, American-born blacks and African-born blacks. So while people of color were slaves not all of them acted the same or even thought the same.

A Long Way From Home graphically recreates the life of slaves and owners and is a poignant, and powerful story told from a different perspective. Once I started reading it, I was able to finish the book in one setting as the story was well-written, the characters were believable, and the storyline provided a stirring account of the everyday lives of slaves before and after the Civil War. The only disappointment was the ending ...I wonder if a sequel is forthcoming?

Rating:
Summary: very good for the most part
Review: Susie works as a houseslave for Massa Jimmy and Miss Dolly in Montpelier. The former President and his spouse may be aging, but they are growing old in a style that is rapidly disappearing in 1830's Virginia. Assisting Susie is her young daughter Clara, who hates being a slave and wonders if Nat Turner was right revolting against the Whites.

When the Madisons die, their son sells his slaves and the family plantation to pay his massive debts. Clara continues to work at Montpelier as a succession of masters passes through its doors. One of her owners sires two daughters with Clara. One of Clara's children Susan is sold to a rich Richmond banker where she easily moves into the household and falls in love with freed slave Oliver Armistead. Her only hope to not be separated from her beloved is for the North to win the Civil War.

In a relatively short period, Connie Briscoe has gained a deserved reputation for writing some of the best tales about the African-American experience in America. Her latest novel involves three generations (Ms. Briscoe's ancestors) of African-American females coping with being slaves in the nineteenth century. The characters will gain much empathy from readers, especially when their master breaks the family apart and when they keep Oliver away from Susan. Though the story line is a bit ambitious leading to unfinished subplots (perhaps a trilogy was in order), Ms. Briscoe will dazzle her audience with another winning gut wrenching family drama.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: It is a Good read
Review: The book is powerful in the way that it is able to move in and out of the themes of slavery and the impact that it had on various generations of people. This is a good book to read if you would like to see the historical roots of the strength of African American women. It is a book that I would recommend for someone of all races. For some it may be painful, but it is a good reminder. In the end, you feel renewed.

Rating:
Summary: Family history meets Hallmark Hall of Fame
Review: The first thing I noticed about this book was not the synopsis, but the fact that Ms. Briscoe lives in Falls Church, Virginia, very near the home of my mother. Then I read the book cover and decided I had to check it out of the library (sorry to the author and publisher, but I'm broke). Family history is a family hobby (inherited from my mother and grandmother, ironically enough), and this is the kind of the book I've dreamed of writing.

As usual, reality did not live up to expectation. Although there are a lot of good things about this book--I was impressed that not all of the characters actually wanted to be free, a piece of realism (if you doubt me, see "The Slave Narratives" or other first-person accounts) often ignored. The beginning was engrossing, but my interest waned as the book went on. For one thing, the story jumped from scene to scene, without enough transition to make the leap worthwhile. This may have been a stylistic thing (the story tore the reader from a scene without warning, as slaves were torn from their families), but it could have been better executed. I love happy endings, but this one felt like a Movie-of-the-Week--one minute the Civil War is still going on, the next the curtain falls on a happy reunion. I hope Ms. Briscoe will keep writing about her family--true stories bring history to life--but she needs to do a little more work before releasing the next one.