Customer Reviews

Upstate: A Novel

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Poignant, compelling, luminous, this novel told in epistle form is a moving account of a young couple in love and their struggle to maintain a relationship while the young man, seventeen years old, is incarcerated for a horrendous crime. The first words Antonio writes to Natasha is "Baby, do you believe I killed my daddy?" Thus begins a correspondence that spans almost ten years.

In their letters beginning in January 1990, Natasha and Antonio look back at their courtship against the landscape of their beloved Harlem. Their escapades on the subway, their favorite playing fields, and their indifference to their school assignments are now precious memories. Both of them, products of working-class families, have had less than favorable living conditions, Natasha is frustrated as she witnesses her mother's diminishing self-image caused by her live-in boyfriend. There was a time before the death of Natasha's father that they were a nuclear family and had happy times. Antonio has a depressed father who hid his pain with alcohol, lashing out at his family. Natasha is part fly girl but with one foot in church as she struggles with the values of her religious grandmother.

Over the next several months, the couple's love is tested time after time compounded by Antonio's trial, loneliness for the both of them and tragic family situations. Antonio fights to maintain his sanity as he is befriended by two hard-core cons that protect and school him in how to sustain prison life. Natasha, now more focused on school, is rewarded with opportunities that expand her view of a world beyond Harlem. Antonio is no longer ashamed of his thirst for knowledge and book learning, devouring every text he can get his hands on. As the months grow into years the questions remains, can love conquer all? How well does Natasha know the boy to whom she has pledged her heart?

This book moved this reviewer on so many levels as this novel, little more than 200 pages, addressed issues of social, economic, inequities of the judicial system and matters of the heart. It was a pleasure to meet the author, Kalisha Buchanon, at her book signing in Oakland. A gracious young woman, she is to be commended for bringing dignity and integrity to urban fiction at a time when so much of this genre is thrown at us with sensationalism and caricature like images. The language is beautifully crafted, realistic and the voices distinct. Though it is only February, this book will easily make my list of top ten favorites for 2005.

Dera R. Williams
APOOO BookClub
Marcus Book Club (Oakland)

"Sometimes in this life some things are bigger and more important than your one life could ever be."

As I looked through pages of books I don't have on Amazon it was this beautiful cover of a white butterfly on red with the word Upstate in lowercase purple letters that kept me continuously coming back to this book. The simplicity spoke to my heart.

Okay so I opened this book on 2/24/05 as soon as I picked it up from Borders, and I was surprised at how it was written, but hey we know me, I love a challenge.

It's Harlem, New York 1990. Antonio and Natasha are "in love" You know how it is when your heart beats so hard the very first time and you can't imagine ever being apart from that person. Well imagine that this book is written in the form of letters between these two love birds, Antonio and Natasha whose lives are being altered drastically.

Over the course of nine years you experience the couple as they are trying to survive. Survive loneliness, death, love, and fear. (I dream about you every night every day...I'm so in love with you!) On the brink of escaping the possibility of a longer sentence Antonio accepts a plea for a dime for a crime that we are uncertain at times he committed. Although Antonio is in jail you go through the motions as he and Natasha hold on to their memories as they write one another daily leaning on the other. Natasha has imprisoned herself from living in order to be a stand by her guy chick.

I mean really ten years isn't that long when you're only 16, is it?

Well when weeks seem like years the light finally shines and now it's time that our young couple face facts... Although it maybe love the truth of the matter is that the separation is too hard!

Life gets tight for Antonio. He struggles to deal with all of the hard times. You have to remember Antonio is after all still a child! Being locked on the inside in some aspects has been helpful, but it's also been a hard road. It's only now that Antonio is aware of all that he's taken for granted.

As Natasha grows you see how she sets her sights on a higher education. This self proclaimed "Harlem Chick for life" travels from Paris, to Chicago (my kind of town) allowing herself a prosperous future.

Although it's a major heart ache at times, it can be argued that it was in many ways a benefit. Time after time.

Kalisha this was a very creative gem.

I was so pleased with this book. Even though this book was fictional, the author made you think that the characters were so real and that this is a true story. You were embraced by the chacters. The book is different because its a bunch of letters two teens are writing back and forth to each other or a spand of 10 years but it is very good and well put togehter.this is a must have and i hope the author get her recognition and either make a sequel to the book or start writing her second book. cant wait for another great one!!!!

This book first caught my eye because of the title "Upstate". I was in Tempe, Az at the time, but I instantly knew the author was referring to New York. To be more precise, I knew that she was referring to prison in upstate New York. I am not a black women. I am a white women. I was a teenager in the Bronx, in the 70's. before the author was born. At seventeen the love of my life went to prison. I then went on to live the life she described as Natasha and Antonio's. The only difference was that I married my young love, and spent many years visiting him in prisons upstate.

Thirty years have past, we are not together now, but we have never gotten over each other. I cried when I read the progression of Antonio and Natasha's relationship. I cried, because I lived it. Because I read and wrote those same letters, and because I utimately let it go.

I cried because it was so bittersweet, and so very true.

I would have never believed that anyone could have known how it felt, and how it still feels, without actually having lived it.

Thank you Kalisha for telling my story so elegantly.

Rita

The use of exchanged letters is a literary tool that has been used most effectively in a number of novels. What most quickly comes to mind is the recent A Venetian Affair, the compelling story of two star crossed lovers. Once again we are torn by the emotional story of young love, although this time in a very different setting and brought to vivid live by the voices of Chadwick Boseman and Heather Simms.

Listeners are captured by Antonio's opening lines to Natasha, "Baby, the first thing I need to know from you is do you believe I killed my father?"

Born and bred in Harlem the teenagers are madly in love. Their idyll comes to an abrupt end when Antonio is jailed for the killing of his father. And so begins a ten year long correspondence. He is on the inside, desperately trying to stay alive. She is on the outside without him and facing a number of choices - all options that aren't available to him.

Of course, both of them will change during this experience and due to the passage of time. The question is whether or not they can ever recapture the innocence and joy of the love they once shared.

Upstate is a brave, touching, sometimes gritty debut novel with broad appeal.

- Gail Cooke

I read constantly but I have been basically reading out of habit lately and not out of enjoyment. The books have been blending together with the same plot and climax to them. Not this one. It touched me and then when I thought I knew the ending it surprised me and touched me further. A definite must read.

This is the best book I have read in a while. It was an absolutely brilliant idea to tell the book through letters. I was holding out hope until the very end. When antonio wrote the last letter I didn't want to here it-- I didn't want to let go! With so many books out there that are fun to read but don't really evoke any real feeling, this was refreshing. I felt a full range of emotions. As an adult who has yet to experience that first true love, I felt it through the love antonio and natasha shared. I am telling everyone I know to read this book. This is one for the entire African American community to read and embrace. Do I really have to say that I loved this book? Oh what the hell-- I LOVED IT, LOVED IT, LOVED IT!!!!!

The story of Natasha and Antonio is true to life and heartbreakingly beautiful. This is real literature at its finest! With a lot of garbage books flooding the market, I sincerely hope this one doesn't get lost in the shuffle. This is a true gem - the real deal. Simply put - just a phenomenal story.

I loved this book, not only because I'm facing a lot of what Natasha was but because it is real. I've read so many books lately that were supposed to be "real" but had instances that could only be found in books. Everybody has a closed opinion about our black men in prison. Every man is not defined by his inmate number. We have smart, intelligent, strong black men behind the gates that may not even deserve the sentences imposed on them. This book opens the minds of young love and growth between two individuals on different sides of life. It shows what life is mostly like for men locked up and not the grimy version TV always portrays. As a woman you have a choice to stay down or to stay around. This story shows a young girl turning into a woman's challenge to make her decision with love standing in the middle. Good pick!

Sixteen-year-old Antonio is sent to prison in upstate New York for 10 years after being convicted of his father's murder. His girlfriend, Natasha, promises to wait for him and write to him throughout it all. This novel is written as a series of letters back and forth between the two over the course of ten years. With time, their words and attitudes change, but their devotion to one another in love and in friendship is what shines most in this book. Buckhanon's version of first love and the heartbreak that comes with it has way more depth than the average "urban" novel.

I read Upstate in three hours sitting in bed and I wish I'd had a box of tissues with me. Kalisha Buckhanon has written a stunning debut novel of the hope and promise of young love that is damned because of circumstance. All I can say is Wow! I read the other reviews, but I had no idea how good this book would be. Buckhanon has a talent for voice, so that each time I read a letter from Antonio to Natasha or vice versa I could honestly feel what they were feeling and the pressure that they were under because of their situation. This novel was breathtaking and heartbreaking, and I'd definitely recommend it to a friend... along with a box of tissures.