Crossing the Mangrove [Paperback]

Maryse Conde (Author), Richard Philcox (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1995

In this beautifully crafted, Rashomon-like novel, Maryse Conde has written a gripping story imbued with all the nuances and traditions of Caribbean culture. Francis Sancher--a handsome outsider, loved by some and reviled by others--is found dead, face down in the mud on a path outside Riviere au Sel, a small village in Guadeloupe.  None of the villagers are particularly surprised, since Sancher, a secretive and melancholy man, had often predicted an unnatural death for himself.  As the villagers come to pay their respects they each--either in a speech to the mourners, or in an internal monologue--reveal another piece of the mystery behind Sancher's life and death.  Like pieces of an elaborate puzzle, their memories interlock to create a rich and intriguing portrait of a man and a community. In the lush and vivid prose for which she has become famous, Conde has constructed a Guadeloupean wake for Francis Sancher.  Retaining the full color and vibrance of Conde's homeland, Crossing the Mangrove pays homage to Guadeloupe in both subject and structure.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Perhaps we should weed out from our heads the Guinea grass and quitch grass of our old grudges. Perhaps we should teach our hearts a new beat," muses the clairvoyant Mama Sonson as she joins in the curious wake for Francis Sancher, a stranger who died while visiting the French island of Guadeloupe. All the people attending ponder his identity and also his effect on their lives. Was he a writer? Drug dealer? Doctor? Cuban? One thing is certain: Sancher, a handsome mulatto on an island besieged by concerns over skin color, turns everyone's hatreds and passions inside out. Economic woes (dependable sugarcane, sweet relic, has been replaced by banana plantations); political woes ("the torpor of this sterile land that has never managed to produce a revolution"); ethnic woes (French French are viewed as bourgeois buffoons and immigrant Haitians as louts); personal woes (bad marriages, incestuous affairs, unloved children, genetic ailment and tragedy have left no family unscathed): All such recriminations find their way into a wake for a man who has left two town daughters pregnant and whose personal creed was touched more by love than by hatred. Readers will find a range of bitter sadness in Conde's (Segu) vision, and at the same time, they will delight in her descriptions of the "desecrated cathedral" of a forest or the "rough fondling" of a swimming hole. Conde's unconventional narrative, in which disparate voices take turns mourning or celebrating Sancher, paradoxically risks seeming formulaic, and many of her transitions are self-consciously abrupt, but this rich web of lives has a lush, trembling beauty that seems nearly ready, by the end of the wake, to heed Mama Sonson's desperately needed advice.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

No one knows where Francis Sancher came from, but when the mysterious doctor dies, all of Riviere au Sel attends his wake. The people of this Guadeloupean village?friends, teachers, lovers, and enemies?recount the rumors, family conflicts, and superstitions that focused on this stranger, and in so doing reveal the wider history of their island culture. Conde, the author of I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (LJ 7/92), vividly evokes the complexities of a color caste system pitting Indians against Haitians as well as Creoles against "French French" in a struggle for power and status. A lively translation, liberally spiced with Creole expressions, plunges the reader into this exotic world where secrets well up like springs in the rain forest, and one person's death brings new life to many others. Recommended for special collections as well as general readers.?Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 207 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books ed edition (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385476337
• ISBN-13: 978-0385476331
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #352,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is your perfect travel read!, February 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Crossing the Mangrove (Paperback)

This book is your perfect travel read; meaning that this book takes you places. You'll have a mix of French and Creole stew and the diverse cultures formed in the Carribean. If you have a love for Nature, Mystery, and a leading Storyline, please buy this book!

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Conde: The Classic Literary Maroon, October 12, 2003

By 

Alan Cambeira "author of Azucar's Trilogy" (Dominican Republic, author of Tattered Paradise...Azucar's Trilogy Ends) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crossing the Mangrove (Paperback)

The reader must not readily assume (quite a mistake) that this is a conventional detective mystery, even one with Caribbean cadences. Far from being so. Rather, this is an exhilarating celebration of the intricate balancing of the complexities of cultural diversity in the region. Without equal, Conde is both brilliant and powerful in presenting an honest portrait of Caribbean society, most particularly the richness of the Guadeloupean society. The murdered stranger, Francis Sancher, is symbolic of the long history of the Caribbean itself: the influential, intrusive "outsider" that serves as catalyst for change. But be careful; Sancher is not the central character here. If one reads all of Conde's novels together (an experience well worth the time), one observes a fascinating personal evolution in setting, form, artistry, and content: from Africa, the United States and the anglophone Antilles, then finally to the francophone zone. This geographical movement parallels precisely the author's emotional/psychological journey back to her native Guadeloupe. Conde is the classic literary maroon, so central, in my opinion, to the Caribbean literary tradition: while promoting independence for others, she simultaneously claims it for herself. She, by the way, is a longtime supporter of independence from France of the entire francophone territories. As a writer, Conde definitely heads the list of the region's most stellar and talented. All her novels are MUST READ works.

Alan Cambeira, Author of AZUCAR! The Story of Sugar (a novel)

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive! It's Everything that you'd expect and more!, March 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Crossing the Mangrove (Paperback)

I hate reviews of books because you either get a lame overstatement or a careless understatement. Most the reviews that I've read on this book speaks of a mysterious death that leads to an investigative story--- and the investigative assumption makes readers like me completely skip books of the nature.

BUT THIS BOOK HAS A STEW SO THICK IN CULTURE and COLOR SCENERY that it encaptures you so that shortly you'll realize that the book is over. Every character has an interesting story. I love this book and I plan to read more of Conde's novels. It's a journey in past times and current times, cultures varying from Negro, Mulatto, East Indian, French/Creole Carribean as well Spanish Carribiean and Americas..You'll love it.