A review by booknblues
Dessa Rose by Sherley Anne Williams
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Sherley Anne Williams a poet and novelist who wrote Dessa Rose was admired by Toni Morrison among others. Dessa Rose was critically acclaimed and adapted as a play which premiered in 2005.
I was intrigued by the books description of a friendship between two women one white and one black in the antebellum south. To call it a friendship is to simplify the complicated relationship between these two women. It is an interesting story which is much more than a story about friendship. The two main characters whose eyes the story is told through are Dessa Rose and escaped slave and Ruth Sutton who owns the plantation in Alabama called The Glen.
We see the misunderstandings which can easily develop across racial and social barriers. We also see how difficult it can be to rise above these barriers.
When, Dessa Rose ended, I wanted a sequel about what happened in these characters lives.
One question, I had was how likely life that was described in the plantation The Glen was. I think that Toni Morrison answered it by saying:
"Do you think that in a way Sherley’s novel is a fantasy? TM: No, I don’t. I’m sure those situations and those relationships existed, because there’s so much effort to erase them—they must have existed a lot. Or people were fearful that they might.
I was intrigued by the books description of a friendship between two women one white and one black in the antebellum south. To call it a friendship is to simplify the complicated relationship between these two women. It is an interesting story which is much more than a story about friendship. The two main characters whose eyes the story is told through are Dessa Rose and escaped slave and Ruth Sutton who owns the plantation in Alabama called The Glen.
We see the misunderstandings which can easily develop across racial and social barriers. We also see how difficult it can be to rise above these barriers.
When, Dessa Rose ended, I wanted a sequel about what happened in these characters lives.
One question, I had was how likely life that was described in the plantation The Glen was. I think that Toni Morrison answered it by saying:
"Do you think that in a way Sherley’s novel is a fantasy? TM: No, I don’t. I’m sure those situations and those relationships existed, because there’s so much effort to erase them—they must have existed a lot. Or people were fearful that they might.