Rattlebone

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Summary: This is for you Emily!
Review: I'm currently studying at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS. Reading Rattlebone is one of the requirements for our English 102 class. I don't know if that has anything to do with the fact that the author, Maxine Clair, graduated from KU. Anyways, it is pretty much a thrill to be able to read about the past of a place where you're living right now. It's not only that, it kind of takes you back through time to the 50's and lets you experience or see a young African American girl's (Irene's) life back then. How family problems, social conflicts, and major political changes affected her life as she went through puberty and early teenage life. I think Maxine Clair does a pretty good job in using and creating different, but unique characters in Irene's life which influences her in their own unique manner. I think that if you're looking for a book to take you back into time, Rattlebone is a must-read book, especially if you live in Kansas or in the midwest. I know everytime I go down to Olathe or Kansas City, I will not look at it the same way I used to.

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Summary: A Girl's view of Rattlebone
Review: Rattlebone is great book to read, not for just African-Americans, but for the many people who have encountered a moment of being different. Maxine Clair used many different interviews she had to come up with the different chapters she had in this novel. In doing so, she opened my eyes to another world that I had yet to discover. Her stories made me realize that society today, has way more than what it had in the past. We need to stop blaming one another for the past, and make what we have now, so much better so that we don't have to live the lives of the characters in Rattlebone.

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Summary: Town Meeting - A Portrait
Review: Rattlebone, Kansas. Circa 1950. A group of related short stories paints a picture of the town of Rattlebone, Kansas and its inhabitants. Driven by strong characterizations, Maxine Clair's Rattlebone introduces us to Irene, a young girl living there as she grows, experiences, and blooms. Other notable characters include the Red Quanders, a group of people living together in a kinship environment, reminiscent of Igbo and other West African traditionalists, October Brown, Irene's grade school teacher, and Nick, Irene's introduction to love and all things pre-pubescent.

In essence, the tales tell two sides to every story, first relaying how a character is perceived by others and also how a character perceives himself or herself. The stories and characters all tie together if they do not pronounce themselves with novel-like fluency. Clair even continues a character's (October Brown) story in her second fiction title, October Suite. Each of these stories has its own moral, its own personality, its own undercurrent of emotion and is, thus, worthy of any reader's attention.

Reviewed by CandaceK