At the Full and Change of the Moon: A Novel [Hardcover]

Dionne Brand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1999

From acclaimed and award-winning poet and novelist Dionne Brand comes At the Full and Change of the Moon, a saga of magnificent scope, spanning six generations of Africans in the Americas and beyond.

In 1824 on the island of Trinidad, Marie-Ursule, queen of a secret society of militant slaves called the Sans Peur Regiment, plots a mass suicide - a quietly brazen act of revolt. The end of the Sans Peur is also the beginning of a new world, for Marie-Ursule cannot kill her young daughter, Bola - who escapes to live free and bear a dynasty of descendants who spill out across the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. Haunted by a legacy of passion and oppression, the children of Bola pass through two world wars and into the confusion, estrangement, and violence of the late twentieth century. There is Samuel, the soldier who goes to war to defend Mother England and returns with a broken spirit; Cordelia, a woman who has spent her life suppressing the fiery desire that finally catches her, unabated, in her fiftieth year; Priest, the badjohn who leaves the islands for a gangster life ranging from Miami to Brooklyn; and Adrian, who ends up a junkie on the streets of Amsterdam. And still in Trinidad there is the second Bola, a girl who lives alone in the family home, wandering among the dead and waiting for the generations of her ancestors to join her. With lyrical fire and a chorus of voices rendered vividly and beautifully, Dionne Brand's second novel is a work of bold ambition, an epic of the African diaspora that places her in the company of such writers as Toni Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, and Patrick Chamoiseau.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Close on the heels of her well-received first novel (In Another Place, Not Here), Brand delivers a distinguished, visionary work, grounded in the language and legacy of her native Trinidad. Intricately structured and lyrically narrated, the novel invokes the powerful influence of hereditary forces on the far-flung descendants of Marie-Ursule, Trinidadian queen of a secret society of militant slaves. In 1823, in a supreme gesture of rebellion, Marie-Ursule orchestrates a mass slave suicide, from which only her young daughter Bola is spared. In her hideaway at an abandoned monastery on the tip of the island, Bola sinks deep into the spirit of the land and the sea. Roused from her reveries when other islanders move nearby, she has nine children with nine different men, none of whom can tame her. She shuttles her children off into the world, and it is their stories and their children's stories that make up the balance of the novel. While some voices are more memorable than others, snippets of memory tie each back to Marie-Ursule or Bola. Private Sones fights in WWI, falling into madness upon his return to the island. Cordelia, a model of maternal decorum until she turns 50, has simultaneous affairs with an "ice-cream-freezer man" and her seamstress. A haunting portrait of a cold, heartless hustler emerges in Priest, who roams from Florida to New York. "He didn't feel any love for anybody.... He watched them to see if they loved him and what they would do for him if they did." The novel ends in the present day and on a poignant note with a schoolgirl named after her great-grandmother Bola mourning her mother's death. Compressing her far-reaching tale in a tight 300 pages, Brand seamlessly fuses individual and collective identities in a work of poetic achievement. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Brand, an award-winning African Canadian poet, novelist, and short story writer, has written a powerful family saga, filled with passion and anguish. It begins in early-19th-century Trinidad with Marie-Ursule, a rebellious slave leader who plots a mass suicide. She cannot kill her daughter Bola, however, and quietly arranges for her escape. It is through Bola and her children, scattered to the four corners of the world, that the real story unfolds. Brand renders their lives in rich, almost lyrical language, offering up a world filled with unique characters: Cordelia, a woman with insatiable desires; Priest, a would-be evangelist turned gangster; Adrian, his younger brother, a hopeless addict; and a second Bola, living alone in the ruins of the family home, talking to the dead. A provocative book; essential for larger public libraries and all black studies collections.AJanis Williams, Shaker Heights P.L., OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 302 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802116493
• ISBN-13: 978-0802116499
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #982,410 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Poetic Account of Six Generations, May 26, 2000

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: At the Full and Change of the Moon: A Novel (Hardcover)

A poetic account of six generations born from an act of rebellion and set free into the world, this novel begins on Trinidad as Marie Ursule plots a mass suicide of fellow slaves and ensures the escape of her "vanity and joy," little Bola. Marie Ursule's descendants, born of Bola and her lust for different men, dash off to disparate lives, which Brand describes in separate, always lyrical, chapters. Although Brand's repetitive use of certain phrases can wear thin, she shows a brilliant command of the emotional side of language. I would not recommend this book to casual readers because its emphasis on language and theme, and not plot, might disappoint them; however, this novel has much to offer serious and attentive readers.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great, but kind of long., December 6, 1999

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steve (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At the Full and Change of the Moon: A Novel (Hardcover)

I thought it was an amazing novel, very deep. I think Dionne Brand dwelled to much on simple situations in the plot, which at times made it boring, but overall extremely well written