Sarahs Psalm [Paperback]

Florence Ladd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 1997

This searing first novel is the story of Sarah Stewart, a young black Harvard graduate in the 1960s whose growing interest in Africa—and down a path of self-discovery, love, and the choice between loyalty and truth.

This is at once the story of the emerging civil rights movement and the beginning of Afro-centrism. Lyrical. Lyrical, moving, and ultimately uncompromising, Sarah's Psalm is also a powerful story of love and coming of age.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As the modern civil rights movement intensifies, Sarah Stewart finds herself leading a life of "Negro firsts." Not only is she a Harvard doctoral student in literature and a Wellesley graduate, she's married to an M.I.T. graduate student from a wealthy black family. All is perfect for Sarah, except for her growing obsession with Abrahim Mangane, a Senegalese writer and subject of her doctoral thesis. When she finally travels to Africa, meeting Mangane becomes a fantasy come true: he's handsome, brilliant, rich, and wants to help her in her career--a combination that threatens to change Sarah's life forever. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Like many first novels, Ladd's, about an African American Harvard doctoral student who moves to Senegal to study?and eventually marry?the writer about whom she wrote her dissertation, exhibits the best of intentions. Earnest but didactic, it chronicles Sarah Thompson's search for a purpose in life, as played out against the backdrop of the 1960s, when the civil rights movement and the newly gained independence of African nations staked often conflicting claims on the imaginations of America's black elite. But with stereotyped characters, a fairy-tale setting and a melodramatic plot, this is essentially a romantic potboiler with a PC veneer. Sarah's husband, Lincoln, is such a pinched soul from the get-go, such a caricature of mid-century male black bourgeois caution, that Sarah's desire to leave him?for anything or anywhere?seems a no-brainer. Certainly Ladd, director of the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe, makes some trenchant points about black solidarity in the diaspora and white ethnocentrism, but they are stiff and preachy. And while narrator Sarah claims to be moved by major events back in the States?the assassinations of the Kennedys, King, Malcolm X?the book treats these events as items that need to be checked off a list in a cursory tour of the years from 1962 to 1980. Readers, like both Sarah's mother and her academic mentor, may remain unconvinced that an urban, intellectual American career woman can be truly happy as secretary and wife to a venerated African novelist.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (August 5, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684832798
• ISBN-13: 978-0684832791
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,290,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trip to Africa, September 22, 2000

By 

Lucy Brown (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sarah's Psalm (Hardcover)

I read this book about a year ago, and plan on reading it again for an upcoming book club that I plan to start. This book was excellent. Florence Ladd has remarkable talent in bringing the characters to life. The love relationship between Sarah and Abrahim Mangane had already been established long before they even met each other. It was a beautiful and soft romantic story about Africa, women and the relationship between a man and woman. I admired Sarah's courage and strength in giving up a life as an upper middle class African American woman married to a politician, to follow her dreams and heart to Africa. I look forward to other novels by Florence Ladd.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A psalm worth singing... reading!, May 29, 2010

By 

Phyllis M. Kusi "fee-fee" (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sarah's Psalm (Hardcover)

I can't believe I forgot to post a review of my all-time favorite book, years ago. Sarah's Psalm is a melodious novel that evokes a myriad of heartfelt emotions - from anger to zeal. Sarah's psalm sounds very much like the song in my head...a passion for Africa.

When Sarah Stewart decides to follow her dream of meeting well-renowned Sengelese writer, Ibrahim Mangane, she travels to a strange land during a turbulent time in her own country. While the Civil Rights Era is changing lives and changing history in America, Sarah experiences life-changing events in Africa that open her heart and her head. She makes decisions that alter her world and the world of those around her. Nevertheless, everyone adjusts and lives on!

I highly recommend this work of lyrical prose that still rings melodiously in my heart and my head ;-)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sarah's Psalm, January 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Sarah's Psalm (Hardcover)

I liked this book and read it twice. It is about people I know well. They do not ordinarily appear in American fiction although their world view points in the direction of our national future. The author has brought them to life in such a way that I eagerly await a sequel that will tell what happens next in the lives of the characters we meet in Sarah's Psalm. The cameo appearances of people like Ellis Haizlip and James Baldwin help to anchor the novel in the reality of its time and to emphasize the effect of these giants on their generation. The conflicts that move the novel along are nevertheless the eternal ones. They show how men and women relate to God, to each other, to their communities -- and what forces impel or restrain them in their journey through life. Immediacy and timelessness -- I like this book.