Customer Reviews

Rhythms: A Novel

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Three generations of dreamers face struggles in the rhythms of the Delta and the city.

Cora.. gifted singer raised in church and encouraged to dream by her father, the preacher. She sets off to realize these dreams and is confronted with ugliness and her darkest hour.

Emma.. she's labeled an outsider. Her disdain for her mother and her differences cause her to see an unusual way out of the Delta. She is confronted by her past and her true self.

Parris.. the "last chance to make it right." A musical prodigy and strong woman, made so by the morals engrained in her while growing up in the Delta. She is confronted by the ghosts of her predecessors.

Donna Hill has put together a fine novel, her growth as a writer apparent and almost blinding.

Have you ever read a book that reached out and told you...

"This is the book I've been waiting for" ...?

In a nutshell, this is what Rhythms told me.

Picture it: Rudell, Mississippi, 1927. Cora Harvey, blessed with an incredible voice, that has only been used to give praise to God, has no home and no parents after they are tragically killed. She is left with nothing but a dream. A dream to see something more in the world than the narrow, segregated confines of Rudell. Nothing that is, except a man who loves her more than life itself. A man who loves her enough to let her go to pursue her dreams of making it big in Chicago.

Cora, however, is like a fish out of water on the mean streets of Chi-town. After a vicious and horrific encounter with her white employer, Cora returns to Rudell, and David, wanting to do nothing more than to put the horrible past behind her. Fate, however, decides to play a cruel trick on not only Cora, but her daughter Emma as well.

Emma, who has been blessed or cursed, depending on how you choose to look at it, to look nothing like her mother or her people. Deciding to 'cross-over' Emma leaves everything she has ever known in too-small, too narrow-minded Rudell to make it in New York, hoping to never been scorned for looking 'different.' There, after meeting the man of HER dreams, she also fights to forget her painful past. That is, until it also rears its head, in the form of her daughter, whom she practically drops on her mother's doorstep. Emma's been to the other side of the mountain and is determined to stay there, even at her daughter's expense. She doesn't even stick around long enough to give her child a name.

Parris, so named by her grandmother Cora, heals many wounds for Cora and David. Parris has also been blessed with her grandmother's incredible voice and restless feet, and unknowingly follows her mother's footstep by moving to New York. There she meets the man who could be her one and only, except he's got some skeltons of his own rattlin' 'round the closet. However, just when she is poised to fulfill those dreams not only for herself but also for her grandmother, events call her back home to Rudell. What she learns there could change her life forever.

Donna Hill has written a wonderful book with richly drawn characters. Her descriptions of Rudell will have you almost tasting the dust in the air, swatting the gnats away from your face and smelling some of that great down home cooking! It will make you smile and wish for a small community that knows everybody (and their business) but when needed, they are there for one another. I enjoyed this book from cover to cover, and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a book that shows strength, wisdom and courage!

Cora Harvey is one of those women. I found myself wanting to slap some sense into her `country bumpkin behind' for many a thing - how she treated her daughter, lied to her husband and kept so harsh secrets.
Rhythms is a skillfully written sonata of three women - Cora, her biracial daughter, Emma, and granddaughter, Parris by romance diva Donna Hill. Hill writes of these women's troubled lives and dark secrets: secrets common to most of our Southern heritages.
It made me wonder just how many women are living the Imitation of Life lie. (If you haven't seen that movie, you need to. It is a classic!) Emma is the incarnation of Sarah Jane in Imitation of Life. Sarah Jane is so light she can "pass for white" and that's the life she chooses despite warnings from her mother and getting beat up by her "white boyfriend." The difference between Sarah Jane and Emma is that Emma's father really is white; Sarah Jane's father was a fair-skinned Black man.
Emma was Cora's heartache; reminder of her damaged person and unfulfilled life. She'd gone to Chicago to make it big singing. What she found was fun and frivolity, number running and gangsters. Cora hangs her head and goes back to Rudell, Mississippi pregnant by the one man she'd grown to respect and whom she thought respected her.
Emma's childhood isn't a pleasant one because of the shame Cora must endure after her birth. Emma discovers a key to some unanswered questions when she intercepts a letter from the woman Cora lived with in Chicago. Emma sets out to right the wrong she'd faced all her life - having her mother look at her with emptiness. After the confrontation, Emma chooses to live life as a white woman and seeks healing in the arms of her Italian husband. Then came along her "little brown baby girl" and more lies.
Parris's arrival helps Cora regain the strength and fire she exhibits early in the book. She devotes her life to the child and is able to reclaim her first love via telling him the truth about Emma. Parris, unlike her mother, is able to live a wholesome life filled with Cora's love and devotion. She goes off to college and finds work in New York; she finds a little more when she decides to work her gift - the voice she inherited from Cora in a nightclub. The rest is of the story is hair raising and tearful.
Speaking of beautiful voices. There is a CD compilation that accompanies Rhythms featuring Hill's daughter. Fab-u-lous!

Donna Hill has done an outstanding job with this novel. She takes you though three generations of women, all striving to obtain their dreams. The story begins in Rudell, MS then branches out to Chicago and NY. Secrets form and the characters try desperately to hold their lives together. You are reminded that not all that glitters is gold, the grass isn't always greener on the other side, and you can't judge a book by it's cover.

The characters experience love, loss, disappointment, betrayal, and love refound. Donna Hill has a special talent which allows her to write in such a way that transports you into the story along with the characters. While reading Rhythms, I laughed and cried - felt joy and sorrow.

I applaud Donna Hill for bringing this liteary work of art to the reading world!

The three books of Cora, Emma and Parris make up the novel Rhythms where you have four distinct stories of love. Stories that include the elements of pride, racial identity, class, forgiveness and dreams that unfold for better and for worse.

During the 1920's along the Delta in Mississippi, Pearl and Reverend Joshua Harvey raise their daughter Cora with a staunch Christian upbringing. Cora, a gifted singer, has a desire of moving up north to pursue a career as a singer. Growing up, Cora is influenced by the likes of Bessie Smith and other infamous rhythm and blues singers of the time. Cora follows her dream, never having it materialize and returns to Rudell, Mississippi with a secret.

Emma is the daughter that Cora bores. While not gifted with the voice of her mother, Emma too has dreams to move to the big city. Her dreams are in the form of living with freedom. Freedoms that are not afforded to "coloreds" at the time. Emma passes and lives a life of privilege after marrying a rich Italian military officer.

Parris is the offspring of Emma who is blessed with the voice of her grandmother. Cora raises Parris in Rudell and she too has aspirations of leaving for the big city to pursue a singing career. Cora offers Parris the one thing that she did not give Emma as a child-a mother's love. Parris is the one that provides the strength and the destiny for the women and the men.

Joshua, David, Michael, and Nick are the men portrayed in Rhythms. Each man is strong in his own way while providing the women in their lives unconditional love and support.

The descriptions of Cora and Parris singing spirituals, blues, jazz and Nick playing the saxophone adds a natural vitality to the story. The historical elements and the descriptive prose of Rhythms offers the reader a chance to visualize Rudell and bright lights of Chicago and New York. Having family that originated along the Delta and visiting that area as a child made for an interesting and memorable read. Rhythms is a 5 RAW style!

Reviewed by Dawn R. Reeves

Rhythms by Donna Hill is an intricately woven tale of three generations of women. Cora, the daughter of a Baptist preacher, has the voice of an angel. Cora leaves the small town of Rudell, MS to pursue her dream of becoming a famous singer. However, after a tragic event occurs, she returns to Rudell harboring a big secret. After giving birth to a white-looking baby, she is forced to live in shame and isolation.

Cora's daughter, Emma, is an outcast because she looks differently than everyone else in town. As soon as she can, she runs away to live in New York as a white woman, figuring life would be so much easier there. Emma finally finds happiness and the perfect man. All is well until Emma becomes pregnant She is determined to do whatever it takes not to allow her secret to be exposed.

Parris, Cora's granddaughter, inherits Cora's exceptional singing voice. Cora showers Parris with the love she was unable to give Emma. Parris also leaves Rudell for the big city to pursue a singing career just as her grandmother did years ago. Again, tragedy strikes, but this time, secrets are revealed instead of hidden.

Rhythms is excellent novel that draws on all of your emotions. It is a book of lessons: lessons of love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Hill's lyrical writing and descriptive prose transports you into the book alongside the characters. You smell the aroma of down home cooking and hear the rhythmic sounds of music of the times. Rhythms truly shows the scope of this esteemed writer's talent.

Tina
R.E.A.L. Reviewers

I seem to be at odds with most of the other reviewers who thought the book started slow and later picked up speed. I personally was rather intrigued with the beginning and very interested in Cora's story. I agree with the Publisher's Weekly review that it could have been a great characterization of Cora and her struggles, but it passed over many years to start the story of Emma and quickly became uneven and full of holes. The part of Parris was so short and uninteresting compared to the other two that I believe even Ms. Hill grew bored with her rambling story and just wanted to hurry up and finish it. For a more well-written (minus the empty fluff) generational story of mothers and daughters, read Cane River by Lalita Tademy or the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

This was the worst book I've read by Donna. The story was much too sad. I personally feel that this story would've been much more interesting if David and Cora had gotten back together at least while she was still in her thirties. Hopefully, they would probably have their own children and make up for some of the lost. Now that Cora is gone, David doesn't really have anyone to remember her by. Although Parris love David to death, looking at her is always going to be a constant reminder of what could've been. There is nothing like your own.

As a fan of Donna Hill, I will not let one book discourage me. After all,I've read all her books and this was my first and only disappointment.

Rhythms, is wonderfully written. Each character is fully developed, so you truly feel like you know them personally. Not every writer can make her characters come to life like Donna Hill does repeatly in her novels. At first glance at the book, I was not really interested in reading about the 1920-1930 era, but because it was Donna Hill, I gave it a shot, and I am so glad that I did. I finished the book days ago and I am still thinking about the characters, reliving the story. The novel has a little hidden secret, if you have read other novels by Donna Hill, you will be reintroduce to a character that surfaced (in the background) in one of her other novels. When I realized that this novel was the beginning of her life story, I was completely blown away, and hopefully so will you.

As a long time fan of Ms. Hill's work, I awaited the publication of Rhythms with a great deal of anticipation. Ms. Hill did not disappoint. Rhythms is a wonderful generational saga told with pathos, striking images and great skill. Brava, Donna. I can't wait to read An Ordinary Woman.