George and Rue: A Novel [Paperback]

George Elliott Clarke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 2006

It was, by all accounts,, a “slug-ugly” crime. Brothers George and Rufus Hamilton, in a robbery gone wrong, drunkenly bludgeoned a taxi driver to death with a hammer. It was 1949, and the two siblings, part Mi’kmaq and part African, were both hanged for the killing.

Those facts are also skeletons in George Elliott Clarke’s family closet. Both repelled and intrigued by his ancestral cousins’ deeds, which he only learned about from his mother shortly before her death, Clarke set out to discover just what kind of forces would reduce men to crime, violence and, ultimately, murder. His findings took shape in the 2001 Governor General’s Award–winning Execution Poems and culminates brilliantly in George and Rue. The novel shifts seamlessly back into the killers’ pasts, recounting a bleak and sometimes comic tale of victims of violence who became killers, a black community too poor and too shamed to assist its downtrodden members, and a white community bent on condemning all blacks as dangerous outsiders

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George and Rue is a book about a death that brims with fierce vitality and dark humour. Infused with the sensual, rhythmic beauty that defines Clarke’s writing, it is a remarkable literary debut.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

African-Canadian poet Clarke returns to the subject he treated previously in verse (Execution Poems) in this lyrical, original debut novel: the true story of the 1949 murder of a taxi driver in New Brunswick, Canada, by Clarke's first cousins, brothers George and Rufus Hamilton. The author and his characters are descended from African-Americans who immigrated to Nova Scotia at the end of the Revolutionary War, and he spins his tale in "Blackened English." The result is sparkling, powerfully inventive prose. Clarke begins the brothers' story with their impoverished, part black, part Mi'kmaq Indian parents, Asa (a violent "patriarch who felt commissioned to destroy his family") and the beautiful, tawny-skinned Cynthy. For George and Rufus ("just two black boys blackened further by Depression"), this lineage dooms them from birth, if not their very conceptions in Three Mile Plains, Nova Scotia. George is the simpler brother, willing to make an honest living, while Rufus, the younger brother but the leader, is brighter, more creative and ruthless—he only wants "to plot piano gigs and casual thefts." Petty crime escalates to murder in a desperate hope for cash, and Clarke eloquently plots the Hamiltons' tragic trajectory toward the crime for which they hang.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia, in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, represents an unfamiliar setting for American readers; adding to the unfamiliarity will be the specific milieu first-novelist Clarke writes about: the community of black Nova Scotians, descendants of blacks emigrating northward from the U.S. in the late--eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The author's involvement with the major characters in his novel is more than what is usual between creator and creations; brothers George and Rufus Hamilton, the protagonists here, were executed for a 1949 murder and were Clarke's first cousins. His fictionalized biography of the two men, presented in a syncopated, punchy, metaphoric voice, locates within their abusive upbringing and their drifting kind of adult lives the provenance of their inclination toward thievery and violence and, eventually, their capacity for committing the crime for which they pay the ultimate price. With some episodes too drawn out and others too telescopic--not an unusual problem with first novels----this is nevertheless a mesmerizing tale. Other novels that explore the bubbling up of violence from within one's psyche are cited in the adjacent Read-alikes column. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (December 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786718749
• ISBN-13: 978-0786718740
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,762,047 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book A MUST read, December 18, 2006

By 

Linda Chavis (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: George and Rue (Hardcover)

When I picked up this book and read the inside cover, I wasnt sure what to expect. First of all, I've never heard of George Elliot Clarke but I thought, "hmmm, (reading the inside cover to my self)..a story set in 1949(the year I was born)..about two siblings and the authors search to find out what forces would reduce men to crime and violence and ultimately murder", intrigued me to the point of sitting down and at least starting the book. In addition, the story is set in the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, areas I know nothing about in terms of black folks and how they fared in that time. The author gives us a history lesson woven in with a complex subject matter that had me at times weeping other times cringing as these young men had a ROUGH childhood filled with pain. Mr Clarke hooked me from the introduction and took me inside the world of these people up north with words that had me feeling the pain and suffering with each page. There were times he used words I felt I needed to look up yet I knew what he meant as I continued to read. The "Blackened" English he uses is so appropriate that Im not sure why he, in his own words "accepts total guilt for it; I LOVED IT. His writing reminds me of Richard Wright as it is such a powerful piece that I will read again. Let me also state this disclaimer: it is not for the faint of heart as some of the descriptions of child abuse and other experiences the brothers faced and crimes they committed are brutal yet they give you a complete picture of who they are and I suggest why people sometimes resort to crime as a way out. Clearly we read every day about crimes that seem senseless to us but underneath the story line is a "reason". This is George and Rue's story. If your looking for that book that is just plain ole good story telling from start to finish, this is the one.

Linda

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Canadian Tragedy, June 10, 2006

By 

J.C. Wallington "jnettefrommi" (Detroit, MI) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: George and Rue (Hardcover)

Derived from bits of truth, author George Elliott Clarke narrates the fictionalized account of the Hamilton brothers. In Nova Scotia, Ontario, Canada, the boys are born to Asa and Cynthy, a young couple living in poverty. Growing up, the boys witnessed their father abusing their mother and later turning his wicked ways toward them. The brothers are uneducated, dropping out of school in the third grade. George and Rue become thieves and social deviants at a young age especially since they received no direction from their parents. By the time they are sixteen and fifteen, respectively, they are on their own as both parents are dead. Clarke takes the reader inside George and Rue's lives as he chronicles their turbulent existence as they seek employment, join the armed forces, find love, become family men and then commit a crime so bad, they end up on death row.

The life George and Rue led was very interesting and that made this almost all narrative novel an interesting read. One of the most interesting aspects for this reader was how the author described incidents of prejudice and discrimination that happened in this rural Canadian province. History would have one to believe that Canada opened its arms to African Americans since they were major supporters of the Underground Railroad and emancipation. In fact, life in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Halifax and other regions of Canada was very hard for the African American. Also, very interesting was the pretense of a fair trial in Canadian court for the brothers.

While not really a book I would pick up on my own, I liked it enough to recommend it to those who enjoy Canadian history and fictionalized accounts of real crimes. I also recommend keeping a dictionary handy, because this author seems to have an extensive vocabulary that he is not afraid to use

Jeanette

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