Nowhere Is a Place [Hardcover]

Bernice L. McFadden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2006

Bernice L. McFadden, whom the novelist Adriana Trigiani calls “a master storyteller,” has crafted a touching novel about a young woman uncovering a surprising family history.

Her spectacular debut novel, Sugar, established Bernice L. McFadden as a writer to watch in African-American literary fiction. In Nowhere Is a Place, she spins a fully realized and memorable portrait of a young woman on a journey of self-discovery.

Sherry has struggled all her life to understand who she is, where she comes from, and, most importantly, why her mother slapped her cheek one summer afternoon. The incident has haunted Sherry, and it causes her to dig into her family’s past. Like many family histories, it is fractured and stubbornly reluctant to reveal its secrets; but Sherry is determined to know the full story. In just a few days’ time her extended family will gather for a reunion, and Sherry sets off across the country with her mother, Dumpling, to join them. What Sherry and Dumpling find on their trip is far more important than a scenic site here and there— it is the assorted pieces of their family’s past. Pulled together, they reveal a history of amazing survival and abundant joy.

Praise for the novels of Bernice L. McFadden:

Terry McMillian on Sugar
“One of the most compelling and thought-provoking novels I’ve read in years.”

Toni Morrison on The Warmest December
“Riveting . . . I am as impressed by its structural strength as by the searing and expertly imagined scenes.”

People magazine on This Bitter Earth
“McFadden’s sensuous prose and folk wisdom conjure a memorable character with complexity and grace.”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

McFadden's Sugar and other titles remain key recent novels of black women's search for, and claiming of, origins; this flawed but engrossing multigenerational saga takes its place among them. Pregnant and chronically "displaced" at 38, Sherry sets off with her mother, Dumpling, on a road trip from Nevada to a family reunion in Georgia. Along the way, she presses the reluctant Dumpling for family stories, intending to write a history as a project of self-discovery. The road trip sections are awkward and perfunctory, but Sherry's transformations of Dumpling's stories—creating a book-within-a-book reaching back 150 years—are terrific. One memorable section relates how a group of slaves cannily manages to take over the plantation from its deranged master; a later section tells of Dumpling's mother, Lillie, who fled Georgia for a wild life in Philadelphia; a puzzling slap Sherry received from Dumpling at a family get-together is also eventually explained. With her deep engagement in the material and her brisk but lyrical prose, McFadden creates a poignant epic of resiliency, bringing Sherry to a well-earned awareness of her place atop the shoulders of her ancestors, those who survived so that she might one day, too. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Sherry has aimlessly wandered through her life, traveling throughout the U.S and the world looking for a place to belong, going from man to man, moving as far from her mother and her family as possible. After her latest interracial relationship--this one with a white jazz musician--Sherry returns to Mexico for succor and recovery. Even with a new man in her life, she doesn't feel that she is fully recovering and strikes upon the idea of traveling with her mother, with whom she communicates only once a month via phone, for a cross-country trip from Paradise, Nevada, to a family reunion in Birmingham, Alabama. The days-long trip gives them an opportunity to retell the family history. Sherry is writing a fictionalized account that provokes long-buried memories in her mother. Slowly and painstakingly, mother and daughter uncover a family secret that has been at the root of their estrangement. Telling her story from two perspectives and on two levels--the mother-daughter relationship and Sherry's fictional account--McFadden brings added texture to this story of reconciliation. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (February 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525948759
• ISBN-13: 978-0525948759
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #304,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am mother, daughter, sister and friend. All I've ever wanted was to be happy. Writing makes me happy.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars (4.5 Stars) A Beautiful Journey!, February 2, 2006

By 

Urban Reviews "Your Source for the Best in AA... (Online) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Nowhere Is a Place (Hardcover)

Nowhere Is A Place by Bernice L. McFadden is about the interesting yet tragic family tree of Clemantine "Dumpling" Jackson (Lessing). Dumpling and her middle daughter Sherry have always been distant. Dumpling is surprised when Sherry wants to drive with her back to Sanderville, GA for their family reunion. But Sherry has an ulterior motive for driving to Georgia from the West Coast. She wants to know about her family tree and why Dumpling slapped her on that long ago afternoon. On the way to the reunion, Dumpling not only shares the family history with Sherry but she finally lets go of her painful past. This past family history will bring these two women closer than they ever imagined.

Nowhere Is A Place is a heart-wrenching, emotional journey by Bernice McFadden. McFadden eloquently created an engaging novel that incorporated some interesting historical elements. What I liked about this novel is the way the story of the Lessing Family was told. Bernice McFadden went back not only to the slavery times, but she took it a step further. She started from when the family was taken from their tribe and literally put on a boat and sold into slavery. The writing in this novel is so descriptive that I could literally picture all of the events that were taking place. The plantations, the salt boxes, and the transformation from slaves to becoming free men and women all come alive in this novel. Nowhere Is A Place is a gripping, innovative, and compelling novel that demonstrates why Bernice McFadden is one of the supreme storytellers of our time.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Incest, History and Self Discovery, May 8, 2006

By 

Maureen M. Mcleod (College Park, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Nowhere Is a Place (Hardcover)

Incest, history and self discovery are all addressed in this well written and quite entertaining novel. Our heroine, Sherry, is a well educated young woman who has been in several relationships which have left her scarred. Her relationship with her mother is not very good either. when she finds herself about to become a mother, she decides to make one last effort to reach out to her own mother, and to get an understanding of the reason her mother had slapped her across the face when she was only five years old. Apparently that inccident had haunted her all her life because her mother had never explained why she had been slapped. Mother and daughter travel together by road from Nevada to a family reunion in Georgia. The journey lasts several days during which time they both revisit their family history, and Sherry finally finds answers to her questions, and a deeper understanding of her mother. The story within a story is not an easy format for a novel but McFadden handles it with aplomb. If you enjoyed "Sugar" you will definitely enjoy "Nowhere is a place."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Writing as Usual, February 12, 2006

By 

Sylvia Jill "sweetandcute" (The Bronx, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nowhere Is a Place (Hardcover)

In No Where is a Place, Bernice McFadden has once again taken her readers on an enlightening journey that touches the heart and soul. I love the way she incorporates history into her contemporary fiction. If you are going to take the time to read, you may as well learn something and McFadden proves that she is more than a fiction writer. She's a teacher. Great writing.