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Camilla's Roses

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Camilla's Roses, Bernice McFadden's latest release, is told in three parts: the present day when Camilla's husband discovers a lump in her breast, a flashback to the haunting past that she would rather erase, and a return to present day to face reality and her future. Camilla's middle name is Rose and all the women on her maternal side share the same middle name honoring a one-of-a-kind rosebush that only prospers and blooms on her great-great grandmother's land in Southern Georgia despite being stolen and clipped many times over the years.

Camilla suffers from an identify crisis and abandoned her family ten years ago. However, after learning about her childhood, one can understand her self-imposed exodus. Raised in a house full of cousins by her maternal grandmother (Velma Rose) and great aunt (Maggie Rose), Camilla seldom saw her heroin-addicted parents (Audrey Rose and Leroy Brown) and when she did, the results of the visits were disappointing and heartbreaking. Her childhood experiences causes her to develop an identity crisis that leads to serious skin bleaching and lying - to her friends about her family situation and to herself which proves to be most damaging.

With her usual flair, McFadden cuts to the core of humanity and deals with raw pain, loss, and suffering. This book deals with a multitude of issues: breast cancer, the affects of drug addiction, abandonment, self-hate, infidelity, etc. Every character is fully developed with a rich history and strong role in the plot - making it a well told story. The subject matter is dark and harrowing, but there is a silver lining embedded between the lines -- despite the despair, like the rose bush planted so long ago, Camilla and her "Roses" are made with a strong constitution and we are left with a glimmer of hope that they will be all right.

(...)

A comfortable lifestyle rocked by a not so routine doctor's visit forces Camilla Rose Boston to face a past she'd rather forget. A less than stellar lineage comes face-to-face with the present when Camilla Rose, a long time wannabe is diagnosed with advanced breast cancer.

"Where are your people?" A simple question that requires a complex answer.

Family, hmmmph.

Velma Rose, the disillusioned maternal grandmother who raised her and is still smarting from the loss of her first love.

Maggie Rose, once simple and beautiful, now just simple.

Her grandfather, Chuck, married to Velma Rose, a lifetime of loving a shadow of a woman whose heart was buried years ago.

Audrey Rose Brown, her drug-addicted mother whose thoughts are anywhere but on the daughter she brought into the world.

Leroy Brown, a father by birthright only.

Now, a well-known advice columnist, Camilla Rose is living the life she carefully crafted in college. A successful husband, a house in the 'burbs, and Zola, her contribution to being fruitful and multiplying come crashing down with the force of a demolition ball.

Images from yesteryear provoke unsettling memories from one who has abandoned her family. But when the chips are down and despair takes up residence, Camilla wonders if sage advice passed down through the generations has any merit. "Family is precious, t'aint nothing greater, 'cept God."

"Camilla's Roses" by Bernice McFadden is a moving, motion picture skillfully compressed within the covers of a book. Expertly mingling the past with the present in a series of vignettes the reader comes to know Camilla Rose Boston through the roots that spawned her.

With her knack for right on the money descriptive prose, realistic and flawed characters, and the bittersweet side of the human condition, Ms. McFadden regales readers with yet another classic literary rendering.

-(...)

Bernice has really done it again. In Camilla's Roses, there are several messages that lie within the pages..however, the one I'd like to speak to is the FACT that no matter, FAMILY is ever so important in our lives. Bernice is a grand storyteller that I have enjoyed since she kicked the door down in the literary arena with "Sugar". If you have NEVER read anything by Bernice, you must do so soon. Bernice thanks for bringing these characters (THE ROSES) to our lives, they live on...in our memories, even after the last page in the book is turned.

BRAVO on another BEST SELLER!

Fan for LIFE,
SL

Because as time moves, you may find yourself standing on the doorstep of long forgotten memories, as was the case with Camilla Rose Brown. Still nursing the wounds of growing up ghetto and harboring all of its resentment, Camilla escapes, buries her Roses in a grave dug deep and covered in lies.

Camilla moves through life, perpetrating, wearing the fa?ade like a second skin and as life would have it, tragedy strikes causing a dejected Camilla to retreat into the world she'd forgotten, but it was where she once found love, unconditional and profound. Can she still find the love for her there with so much loathing and time gone by? Will Camilla find that the middle name Rose is more than just a name branded every girl child in her family through the generations? Could it be the strength behind the Rose women whom endured so much strife?

I became an immediate fan of Ms. McFadden?s with her debut, ?Sugar? and was thrilled with, ?This Bitter Earth.? I admire Ms. McFadden?s ability to weave a tale using less than one hundred thousand words. I didn?t find Camilla?s Roses as compelling as ?Sugar,? and its sequel but Ms. McFadden did breathe life into these larger than life characters with the same style and grace as with all other characters she?s penned. Nevertheless Ms. McFadden has another page turner with her lyrical and reflective prose in Camilla?s Roses and we lay witness as these bold characters face heart wrenching challenges, such as addiction, abandonment and self-hatred. I anxiously await her next release, ?The Salt Box.?

In another amazing piece of work from this author, readers are drawn into the lives of the Rose women....beginning with sisters Velma and Maggie. Velma, the eldest, is the plain jane of the two; Maggie, although blessed with beauty, is definitely lacking in the brains department. The beautiful, naive Maggie is seduced by Velma's boyfriend Lloyd, and caught in the act. Velma is filled with anger and an incredible sense of betrayal; Maggie, of course is unaware of any wrongdoing ("but we were just loving, Velma, like the animals do"). Their father, however, meets with Lloyd and the decision is made that he will marry Maggie. Lloyed genuinely loves Maggie, and Maggie loves Lloyd (that's all she knows to do), and all is well (Velma moves on and marries someone of her own) until tragedy strikes...leaving Maggie widowed, scarred, forever mourning her beloved Lloyd and changing the course of their lives forever. Life finds Velma raising her children, with husband Chuck, and then raising her children's children, all the while struggling to make ends meet. Maggie lives with Velma also--forever mentally and physically scarred by a tragedy long ago. But Velma's biggest cross to bear throughout this tale is Audrey Rose--beloved child who grows up to love a monster, court the "white lady" and all of the evils that accompany that addiction, and abandon her child--the lovely Camilla Rose. Raised by her grandparents, like the rest of her cousins, Camilla grows up viewing her blackness as a cross to bear...and associates that with everything negative in her life; poverty, her mother's heroin addiction, sickness, joblessness and the like. Subconsciously, Camilla's goal is to leave it all behind....she leaves for college, concocts a fictitious past, lightens her skin, and abandons her family. She marries light, has a child, and almost manages to leave it all behind...until she is confronted with a family legacy that may seek to claim her life.

Wonderfully constructed, Ms. McFadden's work flows much like poetry. Her manipulation of the written word is incredibly visual...truly a beautiful work.

You know I actually found this book at the dollar store. That was surprising considering that the book was pretty good. I liked the story line, and I thought that characters developed extremely well. There were some things that bothered me. It seemed that McFadden was being a little too didactic and "preachy" when in the end she made is seem like the family though flawed should be just simply accepted by Camilla. To me there were things that Camilla should have left behind, and many of these were things that plague the African-American community to this day. I didn't think that her answers were just in finding her roots. Also, I think the sister to the mother was obviously MR, but the author was trying to downplay as well as the depth of human emotion related to betrayal that runs so deep. Maybe if the work had not had such simplistic conclusions, and other themes hadn't been brushed over I would have enjoyed it more. Some things just made me angry. Maybe it's me and my stuff, I'on know.

I'm a fan of Bernice L. McFadden. I have truely enjoyed reading all of her books. Her style of writing is unique. This book was a quick-read but not a true page-turner to me. I feel like there was something missing...I dont know what it is but when I read the last page, I said to myself "that's it?". This book is a good but but far from being one of her best books.

I love Bernice L. McFadden's writing style and though the characters were interesting in Camilla's Roses I didn't feel a connection with Camilla because there was too much time spent on the other characters and this huge space before her story was picked up again. McFadden is a fantastic writer and I will continue to support her work.

***Read The Warmest December*** It's soulful and touches you to your heart. Peace, the chocolatesleuth.

CAMILLA'S ROSES by Bernice L. McFadden

September 1, 2004

CAMILLA'S ROSES by Bernice L McFadden is a story of several generations of strong Black American women, leading up to Camilla, who at the beginning of the story, discovers she has breast cancer. The opening chapter details Camilla's successful life with her husband Bryant and daughter Zola, and depicts a scene where she and Bryant discover the lump after a raunchy play session in their bedroom. She goes to her doctor whom the family has known for many years, to confirm what they already had guessed, and is asked to give her family medical history. Camilla hesitates, because she does not have a family other than Bryant and Zola. As far as she's concerned, she had risen from the ashes of the phoenix.

The novel then goes into the past, into the heart of the ghetto, starting with two sisters Velma Rose and Maggie Rose. It's a story of sibling rivalry that leads to tragedy. Through all this is the family history that leads to the story of Camilla, her roots.

CAMILLA'S ROSES was a very short novel with an important message. I wasn't sure I liked the writing style of Ms McFadden, although I enjoyed the story itself. While I felt the characters were partly caricatures of real-life people, the story itself was real. The message the reader gets by the end of the book points to the importance of family, no matter where one comes from. Camilla spent her adult life pretending she was someone else, to escape the family she was ashamed of, to run away from the family that gave her nothing but unhappiness during her childhood. It took a life threatening illness for her to think back on what her family meant to her, and find a way back home. I enjoyed CAMILLA'S ROSES mostly for the story that McFadden told through these pages, a story that spanned several generations of turbulent life in the ghettos of New York.

Bernice McFadden has given us another winner with Camilla's Roses. Although this novel is more contemporary than her other novels; I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I cried with Camilla each time her drug-addicted mother broke her heart. As usual; this was an all-night read for me.

Velma was such a strong character who made do with what life dealt her and continued to love her family despite. It was a story charged with emoition and human conditions in the life of an African American family that had so many losses but also had a legacy of strength and fortitude from ancestors long gone.

McFadden is a master storyteller and Camilla's Roses will not disappoint.