River Cross My Heart
by Breena Clarke
List Price: $14.95
Pages: 245
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0316899984
Publisher: Warner Books
Legends abound that the Potomac River is a widowmaker, a childtaker,
and a woman-swallower. According to the most famous tale, the river has
already swallowed three sisters--three Catholic nuns. Yet it did not swallow
them, only drowned them and belched them back up in the form of three small
rock islands. They lie halfway between one shore and the other, each with
a wimple made of seabirds' wings.
The Three Sisters is a landmark. When you say the Three Sisters, people know you're going to tell about something that happened on the river to cause grief. And it isn't really clear whether it's the boulders or the river at that spot that causes the grief. Nobody in his right mind goes swimming near the Three Sisters. The river has hands for sure at this spot. Maybe even the three nuns themselves, beneath the water's surface, are grabbing ankles to pull down some company.
--From River, Cross My Heart
A remarkable new writer makes her debut with a novel of tragedy and triumph in the life of an African American family in Georgetown, circa 1925.
Eight-year-old Clara Bynum is dead, drowned in the Potomac River in the shadow of an apparently haunted rock outcropping known locally as the Three Sisters. In scenes alive with emotional truth, River, Cross My Heart weighs the effect of Clara's absence on the people she has left behind: her parents, Alice and Willie Bynum, torn between the old world of their rural North Carolina home and the new world of the city, to which they have moved in search of a better life for themselves and their children; the friends and relatives of the Bynum family in the Georgetown neighborhood they now call home; and, most especially, Clara's sister, twelve-year-old Johnnie Mae, who must come to terms with the powerful and confused emotions sparked by her sister's death as she struggles to decide and discover the kind of woman she will become.
This highly accomplished first novel resonates with ideas, impassioned lyricism, and poignant historical detail as it captures an essential part of the African American experience in our century.
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1. River, Cross My Heart reveals the "hidden history" of one of the best-known neighborhoods in our nation's capital. Do you think there are neighborhoods in your town or city that have a comparable "hidden history"?
2. The whites-only pool on Volta Place represents an ideal, a seemingly unattainable ideal, to Johnnie Mae. Do you think that at the end of the novel--despite the fact that the Volta Place pool remains a whites-only facility--Johnnie Mae has in some sense reconciled herself to segregation?
3. Alice Bynum cannot swim. She recognizes that Johnnie Mae's attempts to save Clara from drowning far exceed what she herself would have been capable of. Do you think this knowledge influences Alice's feelings toward Johnnie Mae? Does Alice forgive Johnnie Mae too readily?
4. Press Parker, who builds Clara's coffin, is so moved by the young girl's death that he donates the ornate brass handles he's been saving for his own coffin. What inspires this generosity? Have you ever witnessed--or committed--a similarly selfless act of spontaneous generosity?
5. What role does work play in the lives of the novel's principal characters? Is it significant that Alice Bynum has chosen "day work" over "living in" as domestic help? How does working with the laundress Miss Ann-Martha Pendel help determine the kind of woman Johnnie Mae will grow up to be?
6. The financial ruin of Alice Bynum's employer, Douglas St. Pierre, foreshadows the crash of the stock market and the onset of the Great Depression. What effect do you think the Depression would have had on the Bynums and their Georgetown neighbors? How was your own family affected?
7. Johnnie Mae and Pearl are wary of each other for months after they first meet. How does each girl overcome her hesitation about opening up to the other? Have you ever had a relationship that began with such wariness yet developed into a close friendship?
8. Alice Bynum felt compelled to escape the humble surroundings of her North Carolina home in order to seek out new opportunities--for herself, and especially for her children. How is Alice's plight different from the plight of young people seeking opportunity in today's society?
9. Johnnie Mae Bynum is not Willie Bynum's daughter. How does this fact affect the relations between Willie and Johnnie Mae? Have you encountered situations in which stepparents have treated their own offspring and their stepchildren differently?
10. On the night of Clara's drowning, the men congregate in the Bynum kitchen, while the women gather in the Bynums' front parlor. How are these circumstances symbolic of the role that men play in River, Cross My Heart? Do the men in the novel take a back seat to the women? Why?
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"A sweet read...sweet like homemade ice cream from a hand-cranked machine, and just as rich. "
—Holly Bass, Washington Post
Book World
" A genuine masterpiece...full of grace and beauty and profound insights....It bears traces of Eudora Welty's charm and Toni Morrison's passion. "
—Michael Shelden, Baltimore
Sun
" A warm, graceful first novel...with a host of well—drawn and appealing characters...Clarke brings an affectionate eye and beautifully restrained prose to her fictional archaeology. "
—John Perry, San Francisco Chronicle
" Seldom do I find a novel that I can recommend to everyone....I'm delighted to say that River, Cross My Heart fills the bill. "
—Sandra Scofield, Chicago, Tribune
" A compelling novel...Clarke brings to life a whole neighborhood of vivid personalities. "
—Denise Kersten, USA Today
" A striking first novel....Clarke is a writer to watch, both for her brilliant use of language and her ambition in terms of subject. In her able hands, the Bynums are a family you won't soon forget. "
—Martha Southgate, Essence
" An accomplished first novel....The story of Johnnie Mae's eventual triumph——and of a city's grudging coming to terms with the hopes and dreams she typifies——flows quietly but carves deep channels in the reader's mind. "
—Walter Kirn, Time
" Compelling....At the same time that Clarke paints a picture of a life limited by segregation, she also provides a portrait of the rich relationships, familial and otherwise, that enrich the community from which the Bynums draw strength.... The narrative is given depth by its anatomy of a community tangibly and viscerally brought alive. "
—Jennifer Veech, Washington Times
" This River is powerful....Clarke's prose vibrates with the poetic authority of Toni Morrison. "
—V. R. Peterson, People
