Stand the Storm: A Novel | Stand the Storm: A Novel

Riveting... | Stand the Storm: A Novel | Breena Clarke

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	• Stand the Storm: A Novel Breena Clarke Little, Brown and Company, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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What great storytelling

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.

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Stand the Storm: A Novel

My husband and I read this book. Together, we gave it a "B". If you only read one of this author's book, this is the better one. Breena Clark's first book, "River, Cross My Heart" is a good book and an Oprah book club selection. TIME magazine gave "Stand the Storm" an "A-"

Riveting...

Breena Clarke
ISBN: 9780316007047
Little Brown and Co., 2008
Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for ReviewYourBook.com, 7/08
4 Stars
Riveting...
Breena Clarke brings to life the fictional story of Sewing Annie Coats and her son, Gabriel. Annie taught her son how to sew to keep him from the harsh work in the fields. Stand the Storm tells their struggle to purchase their freedom. Can a former slave ever truly be free? This strong, faithful family faces the fear of re-enslavement repeatedly. Clarke weaves threads of history, romance, and drama together to skillfully form a tapestry on which the reader will view the Civil War and slavery in a way they have never before experienced. Stand the Storm will stay with you long after you read the last word. Stand the Storm is a powerful story; this is a must-read book.

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A Novel of Family

This was a beautifully crafted story. IT relates the story of a mother and her children during a coming of age story during slavery in the American South. Told in an easy going way, it was like the patterns of knitting stitches. Each part meshed into the next. THE pacing was wonderful, clean and clear and in a straight line. Just like the even, humming of the needle through the cloth. You learned to care about each of the characters, FREE or SLAVE, and how historical events impacted their lives.The people in power, and those without power were well described. With the background of the Civil War it touched on many emotions, but never in a maudalin way. This novel was a great read, and the characters truly touched me. I expected to read at the end that this was a real family; the ancestors of the Breena Clarke. Not since ROOTS, has there been such a well done story of the African-American experience during Slavery.

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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.

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reviews: page 1, 2