The Wedding Gift [Paperback]

Marlen Suyapa Bodden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 2009

When wealthy plantation owner Cornelius Allen marries off his daughter Clarissa, he presents her with a wedding gift: a young slave woman called Sarah. It just so happens that Sarah is Allen's daughter as well, the product of a long-term sexual relationship with his slave Emmeline. When Clarissa's husband rejects her newborn son as illegitimate and sends Clarissa and Sarah back to the Allens, their return sets in motion a series of events that will destroy the once-powerful family. Told through the alternating view points of Sarah and Theodora Allen, Cornelius's wife, The Wedding Gift shines a glaring light on the brutal world of slavery in the antebellum American South. Marlen Suyapa Bodden's compelling historical novel explores how planters controlled slaves and free women alike, propelling them along a taut social tightrope as they struggled for freedom and autonomy in an oppressive and patriarchal world. The controversial and shocking ending is sure to leave readers aghast.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Wedding Gift is a powerful tale that deserves to be passed down from hand to hand, from one generation to the next.

 Readers should be prepared for a few surprises. You will not be disappointed!

--Lily Azerad-Goldman, bookpleasures.com

The final quarter of The Wedding Gift alone has enough plot material for another two books. In spite of horrors and suffering, this is a novel in which the human spirit rises up triumphant. --Meredith Sue Willis, author of Oradell at Sea

This is not a novel for the faint-hearted - but it is, indeed, a novel inspiring faith in the human ability to succeed no matter the circumstances.
--Jennifer Miller

From the Author

This historical novel, based upon a court case in nineteenth-century Alabama, invites readers inside the plantation, the wealth, the family, the relationships. Two women, a house slave named Sarah Campbell and her mistress Theodora, both of the Allen plantation, narrate. Dawn Goldsmith, Internet Review of Books --Internet Review of Books

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing; 1st edition (December 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439255830
• ISBN-13: 978-1439255834
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (255 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #182,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Marlen Suyapa Bodden is a lawyer at The Legal Aid Society in New York City, the nation's oldest and largest law firm for the poor. She has more than two decades' experience representing poor people and low-wage and immigrant workers, many of whom are severely underpaid, if paid at all. She drew on her knowledge of modern and historical slavery, human trafficking, and human rights abuses to write THE WEDDING GIFT, her first novel.

The University of Rhode Island awarded Marlen an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in May 2012, when she delivered the commencement speech. Marlen is a graduate of New York University School of Law and Tufts University.

On SEPTEMBER 24, 2013, THE WEDDING GIFT will be published by St. Martin's Press North America.

The reader may visit Marlen's website at: www.marlenbodden.com for the history behind THE WEDDING GIFT in photographs, illustrations, maps, and a bibliography!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

169 of 180 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wedding Gift - is a gift to readers. June 27, 2011

By Rochelle

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Last summer I met the author, Mrs. Bodden and her husband at the 2010 Harlem Book Festival. I made a promise to myself that I would purchase the book and read it. A year later I ordered the book as I had the postcard on my refrigerator as a reminder to purchase a copy.

My normal summer read is a Benilde Little book, which I am awaiting a new one.
And a friend had just given me Raising Ce Ce Honeycott, which I simply devoured.

So it was time for me to keep that promise to myself and purchase "The Wedding Gift" for this summer.

When I first began reading it I was surprised that it was about slavery, I was expecting something like "Jumping the Broom," or some modern day marriage twist like the "Wedding," by Dorothy West.

As I relinquished my expectations I became enveloped in the storyline and couldn't put it down. As I began reading Theodora's accounts of being the Mistress of a Plantation, her accounts answered so many questions I had about what women thought of their husbands, slavery, and mulatto children born to them.

Like many others, I was thrilled at the surprised ending - and to tell you the truth, I am now wanting a sequel to what happens next?

I am so grateful to have been given this insight into the lives of slaves and of the women of that period. This book was indeed a gift to the reader.

If you haven't gotten a copy - it will be worth it! Even if you've been putting it off -

The main character you will just love to hate her and then love Sarah Campbell - she is spoiled, naive at first, and then brave and eventually your heroine.

Though many slave stories have been told, this is still a one-of-a-kind tale, you will not want to miss.

61 of 64 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An Enjoyable Novel - A Tad Melodramatic April 7, 2010

By James D. Miller VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

"The Wedding Gift" is the debut novel of New York lawyer, turned novelist, Marlen Suyapa Bodden. Set in antebellum Alabama, the focus of Ms. Bodden's novel is the complex relationship between slaves and their owners.

Sarah Campbell, Ms. Bodden's protagonist, is a light skinned slave who has dreamed of freedom her entire life. She is the product of a long term sexual relationship between her mother, Emmeline, a slave, and her owner, Cornelius Allen.

Cornelius, The Allen family patriarch, serves Ms. Bodden's plot well as the antagonist of the story, he is manipulative, vindictive and at times physically violent. Interestingly enough, his manipulative machinations, vindictiveness and physical violence are usually focused on the females of Ms. Bodden's novel, be they either black or white. When Emmeline stops going to him at night, Mr. Allen retaliates by selling Sarah's sister Belle.

The Allen's daughter, Clarissa is the engine that drives Ms. Bodden's story forward. Sarah and Clarissa are both roughly the same age, and from childhood Sarah has been groomed to be Clarissa's servant. As girls Sarah and Clarissa were playmates. Clarissa asked that Sarah be allowed to sit with her during lessons with her mother. Consequently Sarah learned to both read and write, at the time a crime for both the slave and the teacher. When Clarissa marries, Sarah is to go with her and act as her personal servant.

When Clarissa comes of age she is actively courted by two suitors; her unexpected pregnancy sets in motion a series of events which ultimately leads to Sarah's freedom and the Allen family's ultimate destruction.

A parallel theme in the novel is the subjugation of women in the American south. Sarah's first person narrative alternates with that of Cornelius' wife Theodora, juxtaposing the two women's lives. On the surface Theodora Allen's life seems genteel, she is a white woman of wealth in the south, but by highlighting the relationship between Cornelius, his wife and his daughter once Clarissa's pregnancy is revealed, Ms. Bodden proposes that the role of a white woman in the south, is only slightly above that of the slave; that women and slaves are the property of their white male masters, and must obey them or suffer the consequences.

Ms. Bodden's tome is well written and carefully researched. It is fully grounded on historical facts, though her narrative leans toward the melodramatic. Sarah and Theodora, her two narrators, seem to by fully fleshed out characters, but Cornelius is a caricature of the worst imaginable kind of slave owner.

Ms. Bodden's title, "The Wedding Gift" is somewhat misleading. Sarah is groomed to be Clarissa's servant from a very young age, and everyone acknowledges that when Clarissa marries Sarah will go with her. Sarah is never presented to Clarissa as a wedding gift.

Though the cover art was probably not within the realm of Ms. Bodden's control, it is also a bit misleading as the big dipper is prominently displayed pointing the way north to freedom, but Sarah ultimately finds her freedom by going south. The big dipper, also known as the "drinking gourd," looms large in slave literature and song is never once mentioned in Ms. Bodden's text.

"The Wedding Gift" is a highly enjoyable novel. It should not be taken as an accurate representation of slavery in the American South. It is a novel, and as such it must follow the conventions of fictional storytelling. It is no more an accurate representation of antebellum life in the American south than are Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind."

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Story January 13, 2010

By Jennifer Langdon

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fantastic book. I couldn't put it down. Great surprise ending--I never saw it coming. If you like historical fiction, this book is a vivid, and sometimes heartbreaking, portrayal of early American slavery and the oppression of women. You can tell this book is well researched, but the impressive part is how seamlessly it is woven into the story. I can't wait to tell my friends about this book.