BOOK NOOK; Remembered by Yvonne Battle-Felton

Please note: This novel was written by one of the faculty members of my university and I reviewed it for fellow students some time ago.  In light of current events however, it seems fitting to also share it here on my blog, though as I say in the review - it's not a happy read. 

“We collect bones and bundles long after the river seeps back and the mud dries.  We make up stories for each one.  Each piece is remembered.  Out of sweet cherry wood, we carve our very own book.  The hands bring us paper.  We stitch them together.  Stuff the newspapers, like bookmarks, in between.  Though neither one of us can read or write, each page holds a story.  We remember.”

Remembered is the award winning novel by Yvonne Battle-Felton.  It won the Northern Writer’s Fiction Award in 2017 and it is a work of historical fiction.  Reading it is like being taken back in time and sucked into the Deep South in the run up to the American Civil War.  I couldn’t help thinking as I read, that it reminded me somewhat of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, but with one significant difference – Remembered is a novel told entirely from the perspective of the slaves and their descendants.

It begins in 1910 with a young black man in hospital, after crashing a streetcar into a popular department store, injuring innocent bystanders and himself in the process. The police believe that this was a deliberate act and the newspapers report the story accordingly, referring to the driver as ‘the Negro’, rather than by his name, Edward.   This in itself is rather shocking to a modern reading audience. The fact that all the newspapers cuttings incorporated into the novel appear to be authentic, makes for a very discomforting reading experience at times.

Edwards mother, Spring, is called to the hospital and grilled by the police as to why her son has allegedly committed such an atrocity.  She defends her son valiantly, but that isn’t the story they want to hear.  It seems as if Edward has already been presumed guilty, due to the colour of his skin.  As Spring is informed that her son is very likely to die soon, she is visited by her sister Tempe.  Tempe died some years before the crash and so Remembered is also something of a ghost story, but it isn’t Tempe’s spirit that will leave you feeling haunted.  This is a ruthless novel of slavery, racism and savage injustice.

At Tempe’s insistence, Spring takes out a battered old book she made with her sister many years earlier.  It is a book of mementoes and pictures, of newspaper cuttings and memories.  Each page tells a part of their story, their family history and Edwards ancestry.  As her son lay dying, Spring uses the book to tell him the truth of his humble beginnings, of his father, his aunt and her own place in the story of their past, including how she got her name, Spring.   In this way, the novel beautifully illustrates that storytelling is not dependent on language and the written word, but is an age old form of verbal inheritance, as family stories are passed down from one generation to the next.  

Remembered is a novel rich in cultural idiosyncrasy and vernacular.  This adds to the depth of character and gives a solid sense of place.   It is visceral in tone and you feel the plight of these characters at a gut level.  Every instinct and fibre of compassion is revolted by the way in which the slaves are treated; a young girl abducted from the street and forced into a life of slavery; families torn apart as slaves are sold off; lashings, hangings, rapes and lynch mobs; the moral question of whether the death of a baby counts as infanticide if the mother is saving it from a life of enslavement and abuse; the innate yearning for freedom and the risks of trying to obtain it. 

But as Spring discovers for herself, freedom isn’t all that she hoped it would be and there is a sense of acute disappointment when she says “Most of the jobs I get, I get cuz I was a slave. People expect there ain’t nothing I can’t do, nothing I won’t do.”    And now her only son lies dying in a hospital bed, tucked out of sight in the Coloureds Only wing, accused of a crime she is sure he didn’t commit and already deemed guilty by many.  She knows that if he lives, they will hang him anyway.  So how much freedom do they have in reality?

This is not a happy novel.  It isn’t a book you can curl up with on a winter’s day and escape with, because the world it presents is harrowing and unsettling. I would say that it is a book designed to educate and enlighten the reader.   It shines a light on those dark aspects of the past that we think are long gone, but which still simmer beneath the surface of society.  It is a novel that makes you think, one that will stay with you long after you’ve closed the covers of the book, so it is certainly worth reading.  The main clue is in the title though - for this is a novel that has been written in order to be Remembered.

BB Marie x