{"id":5277,"date":"2014-07-21T11:48:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T11:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=5277"},"modified":"2014-07-25T11:28:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T11:28:25","slug":"when-lilacs-last-in-the-dooryard-bloomed-by-bradley-greenburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=5277","title":{"rendered":"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed by Bradley Greenburg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Sandstone Press 19 June 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

342pp, paperback, \u00a38.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Shirley Whiteside<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

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With its title taken from a Walt Whitman poem, Bradley Greenburg\u2019s debut is a rich exploration of the relationships between fathers and sons set in an America where some people, no matter what President Lincoln might say, will never get used to the idea that humans cannot be owned, sold or traded.<\/p>\n

With the Civil War finally over, many black Americans find that freedom from slavery doesn\u2019t always make for a better life.\u00a0 In an attempt to break free of the past, young Clayton McGhee and his family leave the South behind and move to Indiana, buying a farm and using their skills as master carpenters to renovate it.\u00a0 It is a hard but good life and the McGhee family thrive, careful to keep to themselves as much as possible.\u00a0 However some white people just can\u2019t bear to see a black family doing well and trouble is never far away.\u00a0 When it finally arrives, young Clayton finds himself at the centre of the action.\u00a0 The choice he makes on that fateful day will come back to haunt him as an adult with a family of his own to care for.<\/p>\n

Greenburg\u2019s evocation of life just after the Civil War is fascinating, with some black people, like the McGhee family, embracing their new-found freedom while others struggle to cope without the certainties of slavery.\u00a0 For them, it really is \u2018better the devil you know\u2019.\u00a0 The story is told through young Clayton\u2019s eyes. The pride that his father James and grandfather Amos take in their woodworking skill is well drawn as they teach Clayton to follow in their footsteps, although the projects are described in exhaustive detail which becomes a little overwhelming and stalls the action somewhat. However the metaphor of the men crafting a fine new life out of rough wood is successful. \u00a0The male characters are more rounded than the female characters, such as Clayton\u2019s mother and grandmother, but there is enough meat on their bones to make them interesting.<\/p>\n

The second part of the novel features the adult Clayton but there is so much \u2018telling\u2019 rather than \u2018showing\u2019 that he becomes more distant and unknowable.\u00a0 There is also a lack of dialogue throughout which is often no bad thing but in this case a little more dialogue would add a stronger flavour of Clayton\u2019s character and background.<\/p>\n

This is an ambitious debut but Greenburg handles his material well, not letting his research overwhelm the drama. In the young Clayton in particular he has fashioned a sympathetic character who carries the first part of the novel well. \u00a0It is a period of history that deserves to be better known, and no doubt there is much more to be written about it, but Greenburg\u2019s tale of the McGhee family is an appealing read.<\/p>\n

Buy this book at Abe Books<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Shirley Whiteside<\/p>\n

With its title taken from a Walt Whitman poem, Bradley Greenburg\u2019s debut is a rich exploration of the relationships between fathers and sons set in an America where some people, no matter what President Lincoln might say, will never get used to the idea that humans cannot be owned, sold or traded […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5277"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5296,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions\/5296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}