Nowhere Is a Place

December 5, 2005
McFadden's Sugar
and other titles remain key recent novels of black women's search for, and claiming of, origins; this flawed but engrossing multigenerational saga takes its place among them. Pregnant and chronically "displaced" at 38, Sherry sets off with her mother, Dumpling, on a road trip from Nevada to a family reunion in Georgia. Along the way, she presses the reluctant Dumpling for family stories, intending to write a history as a project of self-discovery. The road trip sections are awkward and perfunctory, but Sherry's transformations of Dumpling's stories—creating a book-within-a-book reaching back 150 years—are terrific. One memorable section relates how a group of slaves cannily manages to take over the plantation from its deranged master; a later section tells of Dumpling's mother, Lillie, who fled Georgia for a wild life in Philadelphia; a puzzling slap Sherry received from Dumpling at a family get-together is also eventually explained. With her deep engagement in the material and her brisk but lyrical prose, McFadden creates a poignant epic of resiliency, bringing Sherry to a well-earned awareness of her place atop the shoulders of her ancestors, those who survived so that she might one day, too.

September 1, 2006
Pregnant and unsettled about her life -s direction, Sherry, an African American, persuades her mother, Clementine -Dumpling - Jackson, to drive with her from Nevada to Georgia for a family reunion. Sherry, now in her thirties, has been traveling the world, drifting from man to man trying to find where she belongs. She has been mostly estranged from her mother since taking up with a white piano player. Catching him cheating, Sherry leaves Chicago for Mexico, where she meets a new man. To continue her recovery, she wants to write a book in order to understand her past. Once on the road, Sherry shares her plan and asks Dumpling to tell her some of the family tales. McFadden ("Sugar") cleverly weaves this story within a story, sparing little of the murder, rape, and incest the family has endured. While emotional, McFadden -s prose avoids sentimentality as it traces Sherry -s journey to understanding and forgiveness. Myra Lucretia Taylor -s reading adds vitality to the story and skillfully captures the dialects of Dumpling and her descendants. Recommended for larger public libraries." -Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Sherry looks forward to a road trip with her estranged mother, Dumpling, as a chance to delve into family history and better understand her own struggle to find a sense of belonging. Myra Lucretia Taylor's narration takes the listener into the simmering tension between the no-nonsense mother and bohemian daughter, who are, nevertheless, almost mirror images of each other. Taylor creates unforgettable voices for a variety of characters as Dumpling's stories unfold a 150-year genealogy and stimulate long overdue dialogue. Through Taylor's lyrical portraits, listeners grow to understand how the family stories of slavery, brutality, and survival finally empower Sherry to share the secret she has withheld from her mother. K.A.T. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine