Stand the Storm: A Novel [Hardcover]

Breena Clarke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 28, 2008

Even though Sewing Annie Coats and her son, Gabriel, have managed to buy their freedom, their lives are still marked by constant struggle and sacrifice. Washington's Georgetown neighborhood, where the Coatses operate a tailor's shop and laundry, is supposed to be a "promised land" for former slaves but is effectively a frontier town, gritty and dangerous, with no laws protecting black people.
The remarkable emotional energy with which the Coatses wage their daily battles-as they negotiate with their former owner, as they assist escaped slaves en route to freedom, as they prepare for the encroaching war, and as they strive to love each other enough-is what propels STAND THE STORM and makes the novel's tragic denouement so devastating.

Editorial Reviews

From Bookmarks Magazine

Like her first work of historical fiction, Stand the Storm weaves together the tale of an African American family struggling to cope in a white world. Although this novel takes place a few generations before River, Cross My Heart, it packs an equally powerful punch. Despite its horrors and violence, Stand the Storm is a surprisingly uplifting love story about men and women attempting to free themselves from bondage. Critics praised the emotional depth of Clarke’s characterizations and her compelling portrayal of life in a city that discriminates against its African American inhabitants. They diverged slightly on the quality of the writing, but the memorable cast of characters—primary and secondary—as well as the humane story more than made up for any flaws.
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

From Booklist

In this story of a slave family buying its freedom, Clarke illuminates and personalizes a dreadful part of our nation’s past. Skilled needleworker Sewing Annie at Ridley Plantation in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, trains her son, Gabriel, so well that at the age of 10, he’s hired out to a tailor in Georgetown (also the site of Clarke’s best-selling debut River, Cross My Heart, 1999). Gabriel is successful enough to buy manumission in 1854 for himself and his family, a bargain abrogated by crafty Jonathan Ridley in 1862 when District of Columbia slaves are decreed free with their owners eligible for compensation. Although the family, taking the surname Coats, no longer suffers the cruelty commonly meted out to persons considered the property of others, abject humiliation and threats to their liberty continue. Clarke laces the novel with details, including accounts of syndicates of African American laundry women and U.S. black troops, to the extent that plot becomes secondary. Although some incidents seem extraneous, and even primary characters are dispatched with unseemly haste, this is a vivid view of slavery. --Michele Leber

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (July 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316007048
• ISBN-13: 978-0316007047
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.2 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,153,236 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Breena Clarke's debut novel, "River, Cross My Heart," was an 1999 Oprah Book Club selection. Ms. Clarke, a native of Washington, D.C., received the 1999 award for fiction from the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association and the Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Association. With "Stand The Storm," Clarke has returned to Georgetown with a bittersweet, lyrical novel that delivers a passionate portrayal of the trials and hopes of the enslaved and newly freed. Breena Clarke lives in Jersey City, NJ.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars We'll Anchor By and By..., July 25, 2008

By 

Phyllis Rhodes (Orlando, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Stand the Storm: A Novel (Hardcover)

Breena Clarke's Stand the Storm centers on the story of "Sewing Annie" Coats and her son, Gabriel, expert tailors who manage to purchase their freedom at the cost of entering a less than lucrative business arrangement with their former owner. Nonetheless, hard work and thriftiness allow them to purchase Ellen (Annie's equally talented daughter) and her daughter, Delia. Prosperity reigns but the clan is happy for only a short while. The threat of re-enslavement looms at every corner as the reality of the times are made clear with the risk of being illegally captured by "pinchers" and sold South never to be seen again. There was also the ever-changing laws and complicated slave/freeman policies that deceitful slave owners misuse to extort and exploit freemen, not to mention the nerve-wrecking uncertainty of their status living in a district surrounded by slaveholding states as the country enters the Civil War.

The history lessons are supplemented with interludes of courtship and conflict featuring some colorful, charismatic and lovable, yet sympathetic characters who serve as love interests and arch nemeses for Annie and Gabriel. Luck and courage are also factors in their adventures propelling the "freedom train." Their industrious and ingenious survival skills are demonstrated during their humiliating encounters with whites and other undesirables. Unsurprisingly, for a story rooted in this era, the ugliness of racism and sexism are a given and Clarke does not skirt the realities of the degrading, violent sexual abuse that women and children of color endured at the hands of slavers, owners, or any white male in a position of authority. However, through Delia, the author broaches the sensitivities of colorism and the complications that it brings to the Coats's household.

Told largely from the freedmen's perspective in Washington's Georgetown district, this literary novel will appeal to Historical Fiction buffs in that it evokes the cadence and archaic vocabulary of the antebellum era and elicits the bittersweet nostalgia that comes with it. The author conjures poignant images to transport the reader back to the bustling rat-infested waterfronts, the narrow, muddy thoroughfares lined with trendy businesses and salacious bordellos, and the horrors of blood-soaked, body-littered battlefields. It is these circumstances that prompts a forlorn Annie (depressed when her beloved Gabriel joins the Union Army) to reminisce about her early years enslaved on the plantation and yearns to return to perceived safety, quiet, and comfort of it. The author continues down this conflicted path as she delves into the complicated familial interrelationships of the Coats clan, the ramifications and hardships of a (slave) mother's love, and its ultimate affects on the ties that bind. This title is well researched and recommended for literary, historical fiction fans or those interested in the challenges of African Americans in the antebellum period.

Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub
July 25, 2008

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What great storytelling, July 28, 2008

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stand the Storm: A Novel (Hardcover)

Sewing Annie Coats is a slave on the Ridley plantation. She's the best there is at her craft (taught by Knitting Annie) and she teaches her son, Gabriel, everything he needs to know about sewing so he can avoid working in the fields. As a young boy, Gabriel begins working for Abraham Pearl, a tailor. The man is kind to Gabriel and soon Gabriel learns the tailoring business and dreams of earning enough money to buy his freedom and the freedom of his mother.

Gabriel eventually earns his freedom and builds his life producing uniforms for soldiers and suits for men who want only the best. Annie works as a seamstress and does laundry. When Gabriel meets Mary, a runaway slave, they marry. The family also begins to help other slaves escape to freedom. But just when they think everything is working out for them, they discover that their children (born of free parents) might in fact, belong to their former master, Jonathan Ridley.

Clarke's story is compelling and fraught with brutal injustice, hope, redemption, joy and sadness. It's a harsh, yet beautiful story. There were brief moments when I felt the writing was a bit flat and left me wanting for some deeper emotion-but then Clarke rose to the occasion and delivered far more than I expected.

Armchair Interviews says: Stand the Storm is a must read.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No central conflict - no story!, September 24, 2008

By 

D. Warmbier (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stand the Storm: A Novel (Hardcover)

The book starts out well enough -- a story about a slave family that struggles to purchase their own freedom. The most unfortunate part of the book is that the climax of the story occurs quite early. At that point I begain to wonder, with the central conflict so quickly resolved, where's the story going to go? The answer: nowhere. The book meanders through the lives of the Coats family without any clear direction.
The book does have some redeeming qualities, however. Clark is a talented writer with a creative style and eloquent prose. Nonetheless, without a central conflict to drive the story forward, the book becomes quickly boring.
By the end I found myself simply not caring about the main characters. On top of that, when I finished the book, I found myself quite angry. I'd rather have Gabriel, the main character, die as a soldier fighting in the Civil War. Instead he comes to a far less interesting end.
It all comes down to storytelling. Clark is certainly a talented writer, but she could use some practice with basic storytelling techniques.I think I finished the book more out of spite than interest.