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Emancipation Day (2013)

by Wayne Grady(Favorite Author)

3.55 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0385677669 (ISBN13: 9780385677660)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Doubleday Canada

review 1: A quick read about race and identity, as odd as that sounds. Who we think we are and who others think we are is often not one and the same, and Emancipation Day examines this through several points of view. The main character is Jack (Jackson to his family) Lewis, a sailor in the Canadian Navy during WWII. He meets and marries Vivian, a pretty young volunteer at the Knights of Columbus hall where his band plays. Vivian sees Jack as a Frank Sinatra-type crooner, and it isn't until they marry and go to visit his family in Windsor that she begins to understand that Jack has more secrets than King Tut's tomb. Jack's father gets his two cents in, too. William Henry Lewis is angry with Jackson for not being the son he wanted, and angry with himself for what he thinks is hi... mores failure as a parent. Jack's friends Peter and his mother Della are also a source of conflict and confusion. No one is telling the whole truth in this story, either to each other or to themselves. Grady makes it believable and touching, with no easy fixes. Free up some time to check this one out.
review 2: a great read, haunting and disturbing. Jack, born fair skinned to a black father (William Henry and a fairer-skinned mother) carries such intense dislike for his race that he denies his heritage and lives as a white man when, culturally and everything in his being, is obviously not a white man! As told by Jack, his wife Vivian and Jack's father, i was left with an overwhelming feeling of sadness at this stupid man's lifelong denial and self-loathing. less

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