A Million Nightingales

Zusatztext “Powerful and moving. . . . Written in language so beautiful you can almost believe the words themselves are capable of salving history's wounds.”— The New York Times Book Review “Radiant. . . . Unforgettable! a classic haunting story of love! tragedy and perseverance.”— The Miami Herald “Moving. . . . Lush passages drip like Spanish moss from Straight's proseÉ[she] writes with nuance and insinuating grace.”— The Seattle Times “Intelligent and heartbreaking. . . . Celebrates the individual's power to create a personal freedom within the most rigid social order.”— The Portland Oregonian Informationen zum Autor Susan Straight's novels include I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots , Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights , T he Gettin Place and H ighwire Moon , which was a finalist for The National Book Award. Her essays have appeared in Harper's , Salon.com, T he Los Angeles Times Magazine , T he New York Times , and on NPR's All Things Considered , as well as in women's magazines such as R eal Simple and F amily Circle. Her short stories have appeared in McSweeney's and Zoetrope , among other publications. Among her honors and awards are the California Book Prize, a Lannan Foundation Award, A Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and a Best American Short Story Award. Straight was born in Riverside and lives there with her three daughters. Klappentext From National Book Award finalist Susan Straight comes a haunting historical novel about a Louisiana slave girl's perilous journey to freedom.Daughter of an African mother and a white father she never knew, Moinette is a house maid on a plantation south of New Orleans. At fourteen she is sold, separated from her mother without a chance to say goodbye. Bright, imaginative and well aware of everything she risks, Moinette at once begins to prepare for an opportunity to escape. Inspired by a true story, A Million Nightingales portrays Moinette's experience-and the treacherous world she must navigate-with uncommon richness, intricacy, and drama.In late summer, I collected the moss with the same long poles we used to knock down the pecans in fall. I waved the pole around in the gray tangles and pulled them down from the oaks on the land beside the house, not far from the clearing where we washed and sewed. I couldn’t take the moss from the two oaks in front of the house, where the windows faced the river, because Madame Bordelon liked to look at that moss. It was a decoration. She watched me from the window of her bedroom. Everything on the front land at Azure was Madame’s, for decoration. Everything in the backlands was Msieu Bordelon’s, for money. And me—she stared at me all the time now. She stared at my hair, though she couldn’t see it. My hair was wrapped under the black tignon my mother had made last year for me, when I turned thirteen. I hated the weight on my skull. My hair was to be hidden, my mother said. That was the law. The cloth at my forehead felt like a bandage. Like it was holding in my brain. A brain floated in Doctor Tom’s jar, in the room where he always stayed when he came to treat Grandmère Bordelon, for her fatness, and where he stayed now to treat Céphaline, for her face. The brain was like a huge, wrinkled, pale pecan. One that didn’t break in half. Swimming in liquid. When I came for his laundry, he sat at the desk and the brain sat on the shelf, with the other jars. He said, “You can hold it.” The glass was heavy in my hands, and the brain shivered in the silvery water. “I bought that brain in 1808, yes, I did, and it’s been two years in the jar after spending several years inside a skull. You seem unafraid to hold it or examine it, Moinette,” he said in English. He was from London, and his words made his t...

Product details

• Authors: Susan Straight
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 08.05.2007
• EAN: 9781400095599
• ISBN: 978-1-4000-9559-9
• No. of pages: 368
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 203 mm x 20 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature