Remember the Morning [Hardcover]

Thomas J. Fleming (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1997

In pre-Revolutionary America, two women, one black and one white, are captured by Seneca Indians and adopted into the tribe, but when they return to a white world at the age of seventeen, the black woman becomes the white woman's slave, and their lives become a tangled mess."

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Reaching deeply into the Colonial past of the United States, this sixth volume in the Stapleton series chronicles the turbulent life of Catalyntie Van Vorst; her fated friend and ex-slave, Clara; and their mutual lover, Malcolm Stapleton. Kidnapped as youngsters by the Seneca, Catalyntie and Clara are returned to their Dutch family at age 17, but they can never totally shed their Indian personas. Forced by circumstances to become self-sufficient, Clara becomes half-owner of a tavern where anti-monarchical conspiracies are hatched. Catalyntie is a businesswoman, too, trading with Indians and setting up a store in New York City. Malcolm successfully lives his life as a fearsome warrior or soldier, depending on which affiliation brings him closer to his lifetime goal to build an American consciousness. Infused with Fleming's (Loyalties: A Novel of World War II, LJ 5/1/94) thorough command of history and his stereotype-smashing insights into the psychology of ambitious, conflicted young people, this historical saga is a marvelously fresh reinterpretation of an era. For all general fiction collections.
-?Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The travails of a colonial Scarlett O'Hara, her free black friend, and the man they both love, by the prolific Fleming (Loyalties, 1994; Over There, 1992, etc.). As children, Catalyntie, who is Dutch and white, and Clara, a family slave, are captured by the Seneca and adopted into Indian families. As they approach adulthood, kindly and beautiful Clara is much pursued by the tribe's aspiring warriors, while Catalyntie, known as Moonwoman for her pale skin, is considered scrawny and ugly. Nevertheless, the two are devoted friends. When, in a prisoner exchange, the girls are returned to colonial society, Catalyntie discovers their roles are reversed: Now it's Catalyntie who's the sought-after beauty, while Clara is expected to serve her. As Catalyntie, who's not yet old enough to inherit her grandfather's estate, schemes to buy Clara's freedom, Clara is sent to work for neighbors. There, she begins an affair with strapping Malcolm Stapleton, her mistress's stepson, that ends tragically after Clara becomes pregnant and is forced to undergo a brutal abortion. Finally, Catalyntie manages to free her friend, but, having been jilted by a fortune-hunting rou‚, she's become willful and selfish. As she realizes her own attraction to Malcolm, she and Clara become rivals, even as they go on a harrowing fur-trading expedition together and form a partnership as shopkeepers. Catalyntie then manages to trick Malcolm into marriage, Clara takes up with an ambitious slave who's both a thief and a revolutionary, Malcolm gets in touch with his Scottish roots, and Catalyntie goes to Amsterdam, where she becomes the talk of the town--all leading ultimately to scenes first of acrimony, then weepy reconciliation. Plausibility goes out the window within the first few pages, making room for Fleming to conjure up a rollicking moral melodrama with an intriguing pair of heroines. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 379 pages
• Publisher: Forge; 1st edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031286308X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312863081
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,181,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"How do you write a book?" 24 year old Thomas Fleming asked bestselling writer Fulton Oursler in 1951. "Write four pages a day," Oursler said. "Every day except Sunday. Whether you feel like it or not. Inspiration consists of putting the seat of your pants on the chair at your desk." Fleming has followed this advice to good effect. His latest effort, "The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers," is his 50th published book. Twenty three of them have been novels. He is the only writer in the history of the Book of the Month Club to have main selections in fiction and in nonfiction. Many have won prizes. Recently he received the Burack Prize from Boston University for lifetime achievement. In nonfiction he has specialized in the American Revolution. He sees Intimate Lives as a perfect combination of his double talent as a novelist and historian. "Novelists focus on the imtimate side of life. This is the first time anyone has looked at the intimate side of the lives of these famous Americans, with an historian's eyes." Fleming was born in Jersey City, the son of a powerful local politician. He has had a lifetime interest in American politics. He also wrote a history of West Point which the New York Times called "the best...ever written." Military history is another strong interest. He lives in New York with his wife, Alice Fleming, who is a gifted writer of books for young readers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars How did Europeans become pre-revolutionary Americans?, January 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Remember the Morning (Mass Market Paperback)

The main benefit of working through this meandering novel, as I now look back on it, was to gain a glimpse of pre-revolutionary America. What attracted me to the book was the author's credentials as an historian. If the story's tensions, moods, and conlicts are historically accurate than the perspective it generates is intriguing. The search for a national and cultural identity among the changing political landscapes must have been most demanding upon the citizens of the colonies. The author describes how the various influences of the Dutch, British, French, African, and native American Indians converged in a cultural boiling pot. The plot and characters were tolerable. Although, there were times when I thought of putting the book aside to find a more rewarding read. Yet, the sense that finally emerged for me was one of appreciation for the gradual and difficult movement it must have been for the colonists to make from a European to an American conception of themselves. The book raised a question- "How did a new sense of an American identity develop for a people governed by Britian?"- and sought to provide a plausible answer. I would have enjoyed more historical identification of the events depicted either as footnotes or end notes. Yet, the author provided helpful definitions of terms as footnotes.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An interesting story told in a juvenile manner., September 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Remember the Morning (Mass Market Paperback)

I was pleased to find that this book tells a story of the area in which I grew up - New York. However the characters; their struggles and dialogue are amateurishly developed. The way the author tells us of Iroquois language and custom brings to mind a low budget film.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Complexities and Pitfalls of Remembering our History, December 3, 1997

By 

[e-mail] JBCheaney (Flemington, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Remember the Morning (Hardcover)

Near the beginning of Remember the Morning, Catalyntie Van Vorst's grandfather explains something to her: "History is always complicated. That's why it's important to understand it. Otherwise it blows up in your face." Over the next 400 pages (almost), Catalyntie lives out a story as complicated as her own roots, threaded deep into the soil of worlds both old and new. This complexity, and the refusal to settle for simplistic resolutions, is the great strength of this novel--and its greatest weakness.

At its most basic, this is the saga of three people locked in love and rivalry: Catalyntie; her former slave and soulmate Clara; and the object of their affections, Malcom Stapleton, who loves Clara and feels something more and less than love for Catalyntie. Their story, splashed upon the towering canvas of the Hudson River Valley in pre-Revolutionary America, moves with the speed of a Mohawk war party and touches on themes that shaped America itself: all the inherent tensions of liberty and slavery, virgin land and the development (or exploitation) of it, simplicity and capitalism, Christianity and animism, hope and blood. Seen on one level, America is the story of rampant desire and Catalyntie personifies it. Driven and ambitious, she receives everything she wanted but happiness eludes her throughout; the peace she has arranged for herself at the book's end is still ambivalent.

And the journey has perhaps been too long. The novel's major flaw is that there's simply too much in it for the length; it spans the years, continents and themes without doing full justice, it seems, to any except Catalyntie. A book the length of Gone With the Wind, or perhaps a trilogy narrated by each of the three major characters in turn, would have better suited the scope. All the same it's a noble effort that helps us remember our own "morning" as a nation.