Customer Reviews

Sapphire's Grave

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

 

 

Sapphire's Grave is a moving and poignant debut novel by Hilda Gurley-Highgate. The author transcends two centuries to reveal the foundation of a family: an African captive called Sapphire because of her beautiful blue-black skin tone. Her physical statue and dauntless attitude commands a semblance of respect from everyone, including her enslavers. Sapphire remains strong, defiant, and unbroken despite the horrors of the Middle Passage, systematic rape, physical beatings, and back-breaking slave labor. So daring is she that immediately following a brutal act of sexual abuse at the hands of her owner who promises to do the same to her infant daughter when she is of age, Sapphire kills her daughter rather than allow the child to suffer the same fate she herself has endured.

At death, Sapphire is hastily buried in a shallow grave, but her tormented soul cannot rest. In spirit form, she approaches each of her female descendents and evokes memories and visions for them to discover, awaken, and use their inherent inner strength to love themselves, gain self-respect, and obtain inner peace to survive in a cruel and difficult world. For the next two hundred years, Sapphire touches the bewitched Sister, the prostitute Vyda Rose, the lovelorn Jewel, the artistic Clovey, and truth-telling, outspoken, shameless Rae'ven who embodies Sapphire's spirit completely and thus allows Sapphire to return to the grave satisfied and fulfilled.

The author writes in a thoughtful, lyrical prose which educes a myriad of emotions and reader empathy for the characters. Gurley-Highgate offers the reader an introspective look inside the lives and minds of the lead characters and their lovers. She clearly illustrates how Sapphire's spirit changes, fortifies, and empowers her daughters regardless of their station in life. There is a valuable lesson in this book for all women regardless of race and/or socio-economic class.

So touching and well written that this book has earned a place on my best reads list. Bravo, Ms. Gurley-Highgate! A job well done...I cannot wait until the next release.

Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub, Nubian Circle Book Club

Let me begin by saying Hilda Gurley-Highgate is a phenomenal writer. Her prose in SAPPHIRE'S GRAVE puts one in the mind of Toni Morrison's BELOVED. Like Dr. Morrison, Hilda Gurley-Highgate becomes a lyrical poet when she turns a phrase. In some ways, that strength seems to also be the weekness in the book. I desperately wanted to gain further insight into the many generations of strong black women that were introduced in this novel, but the overuse of lyricism and the abrupt end to the storylines, hendered this process. Again, I believe Hilda Gurley-Highgate is perhaps one of the most prolific writers to come out recently, and I have no doubt that as she continues with her craft she will soon become a writer who will be studied by generations of scholars.

This was easily one of the best books I have read this year! I had a hard time putting it down. I was drawn into the lives of the characters. I felt their pain and found myself in their midst. The author is an inspiration. I hope that this will be one of many more books to come!

This book was good and the story she is trying to tell is great but she doesn't follow any sort of progression and leaves the reader lost and trying to figure out what just happened. Its almost like reading Beloved, maybe it requires a reread to fully understand what's going on with the characters. For instance, I though Sister was the one who was raped and killed her infant but now I see it was really Sapphire.

Sapphire's grave was shallow. Years after her demise, she comes back to visit Sister, her posterity, in the form of visions and feverish hallucinations. Reliving the torturous vignettes of Sapphire's life, Sister's own persona changes dramatically - from a passive wife to a strong daughter. The story continues with the daughters of Sapphire, spanning time frame of over 100 years. Never tiring, instead, hypnotizing, this journey through time is finely crafted through Gurley-Highgate's depiction of daughters and lovers. Almost melodious, her prose sings to the reader of the inheritance Sapphire leaves for her progeny.

Sapphire's Grave was a book that buried me deep. I was entranced by the immortal legacy of a slave woman who passed gifts and burdens to her daughters, foreordaining them to her unrest.

Reviewed by CandaceK

The members of Turning Pages Book Club applaud the strong message of generational empowement passed through each generation of women who were related to the unknown slave women captured in 1749 from Sierra Leone and sold on the shores of these United States, to the generations who came after her until 1995!

This story is one of generational survival that many African Americans can most likely trace back to in their family history. To have a great,great,great,great...look out for generations of women and empower them from the grave puts a touch of the mystical to a book with way too many characters to follow, so the reader should most likely center on the strong femalecharacters in the book, because most of the male characters seemed weak or none important except for Ethridge, who was said by one of the book club members as a true man!


The graphic description of being "blue-black", which radiates beauty in itself is the desciption used to descibe the patriarch of this family who was stolen from the motherland and supernaturally guided the future generations by empowering them with strength to surpass the tragedies of life that they went through,from physical abuse,neclect,abandonment,broken heats, and death.


Although a exceptionally written book, many of the book club members felt that the book seemed to be written by an attonrey and refered to Toni Morrison's "Beloved" which is a very difficult book to understand!

This book was a testimony for many Afican Americans in that it gave us a view into the tragic lives our foremthers and fathers went through so that we can have the legacies we do today to draw from. We thank th authors who research and bring these stories to fruition so that we today can also be "empowered" and made aware of the sacrafice, torment,horrific lives many 0f them lived at the hands of slavery and racism inthese United States.

Ms.Gurly-Highgate, keep writing and sharing these great stories so that we can become more "empowered"!

I really wanted to like this book! But I didn't really feel much for the characters and
the switching back and forth from character to spirit was not what I expected.
Half way through I had to give up. Sorry.

Sapphire's Grave was an interesting read, but I must say you really had to understand the characters. Sometimes I found the reading to be a little disconnected at the beginning. I continued to read this book just mainly because of the different characters. Even though I gave the book three stars, I must say I did love the ending.

I could not finish reading this book, just not my cup of tea. It was hard to settle down in. I placed it aside, can't say that I will ever pick it up again. I wish that the book was as strong as its cover but it was not.

Sapphire's Grave is one of the BEST narratives of a generation AFrican women. I apreciated how it spanned the years, showed how the unkindness and/or bravery of one soul can resonnate for years.

This book made me deal and face my own demons. I'd recommend it highly.