Freshwater Road [Hardcover]

Denise Nicholas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2005

The critically acclaimed debut novel from pioneering actress and writer Denise Nicholas tells the story of one young woman’s coming of age via the political and social upheavals of the civil rights movement. Nineteen-year-old Celeste Tyree leaves Ann Arbor to go to Pineyville, Mississippi, in the summer of 1964 to help found a voter registration project as part of Freedom Summer. As the summer unfolds, she confronts not only the political realities of race and poverty in this tiny town, but also deep truths about her family and herself. Drawing on Nicholas’ own involvement in the movement, Freshwater Road was hailed by Newsday as “Perhaps the best work of fiction ever done about the civil rights movement.”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In her rich, absorbing debut, actress Nicholas (Room 222; In the Heat of the Night) follows a young woman South to "trench Mississippi, gutbucket Mississippi" during the summer of 1964. The daughter of a Detroit bar owner/numbers runner and his estranged, class-conscious ex-wife (whose light complexion enables her to pass as white), Celeste Tyree has enjoyed a comfortable, sheltered middle-class life for all of her nearly two decades. But when activists talking of nonviolent revolution visit her Ann Arbor college campus, she determines to go South to help register blacks to vote. It's a decision she shares with her stern father, Shuck, in a "By the time you read this" letter, and Shuck's self-identification as a race man wars with his concern for his daughter. Part of what drives wide-eyed Northerner Celeste is her sense that her life little matches common black experience; her work in Mississippi is an attempt to validate her identity as a black woman as much as it is a journey to help lift the veil of oppression. Nicholas tests her protagonist's mettle in multiple ways, and Celeste finds previously untapped reserves of strength, learning lessons about activism and secrets about her own family. Sometimes gorgeous, sometimes terrifying, this novel marks the debut of a talented writer.
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From Booklist

In the summer of 1964, 19-year-old Celeste Tyree, straddling the strong race consciousness of her father and the race aversion of her estranged mother, takes time off from college and her white boyfriend, traveling from Michigan to Mississippi to lend her efforts to Freedom Summer. She ends up in the small town of Pineyville, helping to register voters and witnessing the kind of poverty and racism her father fought to leave behind. Her father, Shuck Tyree, owner of a successful bar in Detroit, is horrified at his daughter's recklessness and proud of her bravery as he wonders how responsible he might be for her decision. On the front line of issues regarding race, social change, and violence, Celeste is forced to confront all of her compartmentalized and comfortable notions about life. This debut novel by Nicholas, former star of the television series Room 222 and In the Heat of the Night, offers a sensitive and absorbing story of a young woman coming of age emotionally and racially. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 333 pages
• Publisher: Agate Publishing (August 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932841105
• ISBN-13: 978-1932841107
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #453,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coming of Age in Freedom Summer, September 12, 2005

By 

David Freedman (Chicago IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freshwater Road (Hardcover)

This book by Denise Nicholas is a fictional account of a young college student's experience as a volunteer during Mississippi freedom summer in 1964. The book came highly recommended and I read it eagerly. I was most interested, and impressed in the very realistic way the author dealt with the subject of nonviolence during the civil rights movement.
Throughout the book, Ms. Nicholas does a strong job of giving readers a sense of the oppressive climate of fear that permeates everything the heroine does while in Mississippi. From the reflections on the lynching that happenened a few years before in Pineyville, the town where she works, to the brutal beating she witnesses state troopers deal out to a fellow civil rights worker, she knows white on black violence is real and everywhere in Mississippi in 1964. Then when Goodman Schwerner and Chaney turn up dead, the threat becomes even more intense.

The book's heroine, Celeste Tyree, certainly does face real danger and real fear during her summer in Pineyville, enough to question the value of nonviolence. But to me the story was a reminder of the great power the nonviolence of the civil rights movement had to move public sympathy and change the way the whole country looked at the oppression of blacks in the South. There was certainly violence and tragedy involved in the movement, and many people suffered in their struggle to gain their basic rights as citizens, but the nonviolent character of the movement prevented the situation from becoming much more confrontational and violent.
Celeste also struggles with powerful family issues during her summer in Mississippi.
In summary I highly recommend this powerful story of life inside the civil rights movement from someone who was there. It's amazing to believe that so many of the volunteers who made such a profound difference in American life were like Celeste Tyree, young people not even out of their teens.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Miss'sippi ain't nothing to play with.", September 12, 2005

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freshwater Road (Hardcover)

Denise Nicholas sets her impressive debut novel in Mississippi during the summer of 1964, the Freedom Summer when civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner disappeared and were later found murdered. Although segregation and second-class citizenship for blacks had officially ended in the United States, little had changed in the Deep South. Celeste Tyree, a nineteen year old University of Michigan student, decides to volunteer for the One Man, One Vote movement despite the dangers. The office stations her in Pineyville, Mississippi, a town a few miles from the Louisiana border. There, she lives with Mrs. Owens, an older woman who helps Celeste learn the ways of Pineyville. With the help of the local black minister Reverend Singleton, Celeste begins the Freedom School to teach black history to the children and a voter registration class for the adults. Celeste finds herself immediately in danger, as whites and even some blacks are angered by her attempts to gain equal rights for the black citizens. Celeste takes to sleeping on the floor to avoid bullets fired through windows and to stepping off the sidewalk to let whites pass. Through all the danger and demeaning acts, Celeste perseveres. In the meantime, in Detroit, Celeste's father Shuck worries about his beloved daughter, for he knows the risks she faces. In the end, he can do nothing to protect his headstrong daughter. After all, she takes after her daddy, a "race man," who takes pride in who he is and is willing to fight for it.

Nicholas, who starred in both "Room 222" and "In the Heat of the Night," proves that her talents run deeper than acting, as her solid, sometimes beautiful, writing evokes her subject matter with the same elegance and intelligence she brings to her roles. Most of her characters are complex and believable, and her plot unfolds with a natural storyteller's logic. Although the author occasionally founders by neglecting certain subplots and characters who seem destined to play major roles, the overall result far exceeds most first-time novels.

Nicholas seamlessly weaves the history of the civil rights movement into the more intimate story of one young, idealistic woman alone in a strange, hostile place. This cross between commercial fiction and history lesson makes this novel an accessible and compelling entry into the black experience during the 1960's.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Glorious and terrifying",, September 14, 2005

By 

Beverly "writer/journalist" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freshwater Road (Hardcover)

The story of a young black girl, Celeste Tyree, who leaves the comfort of her Detroit home to spend the summer of 1964, "Freedom Summer" in Mississippi, helping voter registration and teaching in the Freedom School, has been told by writer Denise Nicholas, with great drama and understanding of how to reel the reader in and keep him/her glued to the page. Freedom Summer is a part of all our history, black and white, and should not be forgotten by any of us. Nicholas uses the background of the fear and terror that faced the volunteers and the residents of the small town of Pineyville where she has been housed, along with describing Celeste's own changes in understanding who she is and her maturing during those turbulent weeks. The language is lyrical in the description of the beauty of the landscape, harrowing in its drama and totally rewarding in the storytelling. A must for all ages.