The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow
By Dera Williams • Dec 21st, 2009 • Category: Book Review 2009 •
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Title: The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
Author: Heidi W. Durrow
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Heidi Durrow has written a worthy debut novel in The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, a 2008 Bellwether Prize for Fiction. Told in different narrators’ voices, the main character of Rachel Morse is the only voice told in first person. It is 1982 and Rachel has come to Portland, Oregon to live with her paternal grandmother after a life-altering tragedy in her former residence in Chicago. The blue-eyed, curly haired “light-skinned-ed” 11 year-old girl, daughter of a Danish woman and a black-American serviceman, is thrust into the care of a church-going, libation sipping, elderly black woman who loves her granddaughter but has nothing but revulsion for Rachel’s mother, Nella. But to Rachel, her beloved “Mor” was a loving mother who tried to do the best for her and her younger siblings. The light in Rachel’s life is her Aunt Loretta, who lives with them. While Grandma is rigid and judgmental, Loretta is encouraging and supportive, helping her niece navigate adolescence and the feeling of isolation among her classmates who challenge her sense of self.
Rachel slowly realizes in order to stay on the good side of her predominately black schoolmates is to claim a black identity. She is a good student and clings to that achievement but also experiences growing pains while attempting to come to grips with the reality about her elusive father and to trying to erase memories of that fateful day on a rooftop in Chicago.
The voices of the other narrators weave in and out of the past and present molding a tale of story, character and suspense. There is Roger, Rachel’s father, whose tenuous grasp of reality costs him dearly; Nella, who is in awe and angst at the racial dynamics of America and how her children fit in the scheme of things; Laronne, Nella’s supervisor, whose perception of white women and their ways, clouds her judgment and brings about guilt; and Jamie, the young boy who witnessed a disaster so disturbing he grew up over night, so much so that he renamed himself.
While there were tragedies in Rachel’s young life, this is by no means a tragic mulatto story which it easily could have been; but in the deft hands of the author it is a story of humanity and spirit. Durrow, who counts writer Nella Larsen as an influence, is a welcome voice in the canon of biracial and interracial literature.
The Advanced Reading Copy for this review was provided courtesy of the publisher.
Dera R. Williams
APOOO BookClub
Order a copy of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky at amazon.
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Dera Williams is a writer and lives, works and plays in the Oakland/Bay Area where she works in curriculum at a local community college. She has contributed to several anthologies and journals including Life Spices from Seasoned Sistahs and Honoring Our Black Fathers and has written academic profiles for Greenwood press reference books. She is a reviewer/editor for APOOO Exchange Team and Affaire de Coeur magazine and active in literary events. Her book club affiliations include Marcus Book Club, East Bay Page Turners Book Club and Women of Words Book Club. Her other interests include genealogy, Black history and culture and travel.
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