Customer Reviews

Crystelle Mourning: A Novel

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Crystelle Mourning is the debut novel from author Eisa Neferatar Ulen. The book is about a woman named Crystelle. She is now a successful adult but she is haunted by something that happened in her past. Readers are introduced to Crystelles teenage years via the prologue. At a Philadelphia house party several minor altercations arise. It seems like a typical teenage scene. However, after leaving the party Crystelle is running toward a group of teens and hears a noise. The noise she hears we can assume are gunshots as the reader later discovers her boyfriend Jimmie has been murdered.

As an adult Crystelle, is successful and has a new man who is in love with her. Despite her life seeming okay on the outside, Crystelle is still haunted by Jimmie's death and takes a trip back to the old neighborhood for healings.

Crystelle Mourning is an okay read. Although it's fiction, it seems like this was more of a healing book for the author than something meant to be enjoyable for the reader. Eisa has a great writing style and she's a great writer. This book would probably be great for the many teens and young adults who have had to move past tragedies of their youth.

Crystelle Mourning is refreshing. Eisa Ulen's poetic prose engaged me from the first page. It sang. The moment the words hit my senses, all distracting thoughts disappeared and I was there with the character, feeling the time and space and emotion.

Ulen skillfully melds worlds--seamlessly--shifting time effortlessly. I could see the kids playing in the street and almost felt the days when my girlfriends would sit and cornrow my hair. All my senses were alive, including the ever present feeling of lose. I felt the mourning; I felt it woven into daily life and memories--into the things we never say. But it wasn't overwhelmingly sad, it was like a presence...an unexplainable presence that stood by me as I read. It sat next to me. It almost spoke to me.

Although I'm sure it could be argued that Crystelle was seeing the real ghost of Jimmie, I felt at the end that the apparition was her--like it was Jimmie inside her--stepping outside to comfort her and save her from her inner turmoil. I felt like she was comforting herself in this way, so she could deal with the pain...like introspective or subconscious self-therapy.

Ulen touched on many issues, including how we view death, healing, pregnancy, child rearing, mental shackles from slavery, to name a few. This work is impressive and will stand the test of time. It is a complex piece worthy of a roundtable discussion. She is one deep author. Bravo!

Crystelle Mourning, the much anticipated debut of Eisa Nefertari Ulen, is part coming-of-age story with a bit of mysticism on the periphery. Crystelle is a young woman who experiences the death of her childhood sweetheart, Jimmy, during their senior year of high school in Philadelphia in the 1980s. Young, foolish and hot-headed he got himself killed on the West Philly streets by a boy they all grew up with in the neighborhood. Never coming to grips with her grief, Crystelle finds herself five years later after graduating from college, and working for an ad agency in New York City, experiencing bouts of depression and continual dreams of Jimmy. These are not ordinary dreams but actual visions of Jimmy talking to her, tweaking her memories and bringing to the forefront the underlying angst she has carried for so long.

Hamp is the young man Crystelle is practically engaged to, an urban black professional; the perfect man who wants to marry her. He is the kind of man you go to college to obtain a MRS; everything should be perfect, yet Jimmy is haunting her in a "Ghost" like state, taking her back to the streets of West Philly where they laughed, played and loved. In a constant being of discontent, Crystelle returns to the scene of the crime and to a home where a loving widowed grandfather and bitter mother reside. In flashbacks and dreams, Crystelle remembers the boy who loved her. Jimmy's death affected so many people; Crystelle, his mother, Brenda, who has left his room the same, and his father, James, who has withdrawn in to himself.

Ulen spent great detail on conversations that were sometimes repetitive and at times I had to reread to discern between the here and now and an actual dream. Reading this book intermittently was like being in a perpetual dream state like the main character, Crystelle. The language was poetic and fluid; the writing rich with metaphors and imagery thereby setting it apart from most contemporary urban literature in the market. This novel is an admirable debut and I look forward to the author's next offering.

Dera R. Williams
APOOOO BookClub
[...]

An insightful and inspiring read about tragedy, life, and recovery. Your will mourn with Crystelle and root for a happy ending. Its so descriptive that sometimes you're in the room with Crystelle and other times you're happy that your not. This book is a page turner and delivers all the way to the end! I highly recommend it!

Eisa is truly a talented storyteller. While reading the book, I really felt connected with Crystelle and felt every part of her journey towards peace. Awesome to say the least!

Carolyn Quick Tillery follows up her last cookbook with yet another book rich in culture and history, mixed with good ole down home cooking. SOUTHERN HOMECOMING TRADITIONS: Recipes and Remembrances, and African-American Heritage Cookbook is centered on famous black institutions in Atlanta, GA: Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown College, Clark-Atlanta University, Interdenominational Theological Center, and Morehouse School of Medicine, also collectively known as the Atlanta University Center, which make up the largest historically black educational complex in the world.

SOUTHERN HOMECOMING TRADITIONS is not simply a cookbook, as one would expect, but holds a portion of history that should be preserved. The addition of proverbs gives the book a special touch which enhance the message of coming together as a race and celebrating African-American heritage and its importance to our collegiate system, specifically that of black colleges and universities. Tillery has created a wonderful niche for herself, and a much needed one for our community, one that mixes history with food. I will be buying this book (as well as the three before it) for the cooks in my family and as gifts for friends. It is sure to be a favorite among black historians and cooks.

Reviewed by Tee C. Royal
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

From the first page I could not put this book down. Very nostalgic and romantic -- Eisa is an amazing story-teller!