Tag: reading

book-review, books, literature, reading

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Barbara Kingsolver is an author that has proven again and again that she understands the way the world works, with all its ugliness and beauty. With this novel, she yet again proves her superior abilities in story telling. A retelling of Dicken’s David Copperfield in the early 2000s in rural Appalachia, this novel shines its light on the same institutionalized poverty that Dicken’s railed against in Victorian times.

This story introduces you to Damon, known as Demon Copperhead because of his bright red hair. Demon was born to an addicted teen mother that had witnessed the death of his father 3 months before he was born in a trailer in the mountains of Virginia. With every turn Demon faces more odds against him – an addicted mom, an abusive step-father, a dead father, and more with each month. As you follow the path that Demon follows, you see obstacles thrown in his way each time he tries to make things better. Hanging over everyone he knows in Lee County VA is the ever-present need for a fix to take away pain – physical and emotional. We find that, in truth and in fiction, this is because drug companies have identified the largest population on medi=care that requests pain medications to sell aggressively and deceptively to. The people that have already been harmed by the mining industry are then preyed upon by drug companies. While the drugs are a problem, as Demon’s friend from foster care, Tommy points out, this has been a war on people that are different. The Hillbilly jokes keep putting down those that can and do survive by growing, hunting and sharing to fill needs of hungry bellies. 

It is through Demon’s grit and resilience, and ability to make do with what he has and not hope for more, that he is able to survive his trials. Along the way you meet people that don’t care, that care only about themselves, and those that cared but are too jaded with the inability to change things. You also meet the most unlikely people that go out of their way to try to ease someone else’s load or try to help them find their way.  You realize that while there is dark in the world we live in, there is also some light in it.

Near the end you are rooting for some happiness to find him, and you are never sure. You care deeply for him by the time you turn that last page.  And you hope that the ride he is on is a positive one.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading

The World Played Chess

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by Robert Dugoni

This is a complex, intertwining story told by two men in three time periods. We start in 2016 when Vincent, a successful lawyer, receives a journal from an old friend he hadn’t heard from in years.  The author of the journal was William – someone that Vinny met when he was 18 in the summer of 1979. William, 12 years older than Vinny, had made a strong impression on him, and while he never spoke of the friend, this relationship helped shape the way Vinny approached life. William’s journal was written when he was an 18-year-old going off to Vietnam in 1967. Vinny had been a witness to William’s PTSD that summer, when he couldn’t fathom how difficult choices in life can be and how they change your course forever.

In 1979 Vinny just graduated as valedictorian, was accepted into Stanford, but his family was unable to pay the tuition and he is devastated. Instead, he is headed to community college. As he parties with his friends that summer before school, he takes a job in construction. There he meets William, a Vietnam vet twelve years older than he is. Over the course of the summer William tells stories of what he lived through as his life unravels.

As Vinny reads the journal in 2016, one entry each day, he is also preparing for his son Beau to graduate high school and go off into the world.  Disappointments and frustration are all there, as Beau tries to become independent and make his own decisions. After a tragedy Vinny watches as Beau struggles with the fragility of life. He is seeing personally that growing old is a privilege, not a right. Through Vinny’s eyes we see the pain of watching youth stolen from both William and Beau at the same point of life. You are reminded that the moments in between are all about shaping who you are. You need to accept your abilities, and make choices for yourself and your family, with the knowledge that all choices have consequences that you must live with. You also learn to put things in perspective – like being able to go to community college is better than not being able to go to college at all.

Everyone’s demons are different, but in the end, the role that Vinny place for both William and Beau is someone that has enough empathy to listen. That allows both men to face the hard parts of life, and be able to move forward to being a better person because of their past, not despite it. In 1979 most didn’t want to listen to those that saw horrors in Vietnam, and in 2016 most don’t want to acknowledge the dark possibilities in life.

This story was so well written that it was not hard to jump between the timelines. The interweaving of the stories is what makes it just so poignant – even though each man had different things happening in their lives at 18, the hope for the future and the realization of what that really means is difficult. As I watch my own son at 18, this has given me another layer of understanding to what it is he is grappling with. I wholeheartedly recommend reading this. 

books, read around the world, reading

2022 Year in Reading

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Key statistics:

I have read 54 books and listened to 9:  51 Fiction; 11 Non-Fiction; and 1 Poetry

Average book size = 293 pages   

  • Longest 561
  • Shortest 23

These books were based in 32 different countries or regions of the world, helping me expand on my quest to read around the world. Of the 117 countries I am working toward reading, I have read books from 93.

Ten favorite reads of the year (in alphabetical order):

  • A General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
  • Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin
  • Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
  • Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
  • In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
  • Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
  • Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitil Gonzalez
  • The Unseen World by Liz Moore
  • Trust by Hernan Diaz
  • Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran by Shahrnush Parsipur

There were many other books that were good, but these were my favorites this year.

I now have over 150 titles in my “To Be Read” list, and it keeps growing. Next year’s goal is to read from 10 more countries on my list.

Happy new year all! 

books, read around the world, reading

Reading Dangerously

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I am not what you can consider “cutting edge” when it comes to technology and what is offered. I have only recently joined Spotify and found some podcasts that I am really enjoying, and I am sure there are many more for me to find. One podcast that I have been enjoying is The Book Case with Kate & Charlie Gibson. In the episode I am currently listening to (originally aired June 9, 2022) they are interviewing an author, Azar Nafisi. Her new book “Reading Dangerously” is a challenge to readers to choose books outside our comfort zone. She contends that reading fiction can be a liberating and even subversive act. She should know, having been an intellectual leader in Iran when the clerics took over.

This is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately. In the US the number of book bans is on the rise. The news stations are bifurcated so you choose what slant you want to hear before you choose the source. We are interacting less with people that are not like ourselves. Personally, I believe that this insular world we are living in has created deeper fissions. The concept of “News” is no longer a factual reporting of just who, what, why, where, when and how. It is all about sensationalism. Edward R Morrow, the man that single-handedly went after and exposed the lies of the McCarthy era, is rolling in his grave. Only opinion is spouted – not the facts. Just look at the differences in how Fox news spoke about the attack on Paul Pelosi versus how CNN spoke of it.

My biggest concern is that in our race to be MORE and BIGGER we are putting others down to achieve this. It is not until you can walk in someone else’s shoes that you can begin to understand why they feel a certain way. That is why the concept of reading dangerously is so intriguing to me. If I don’t know what someone else’s view of the world is, how am I to understand why their stance may be different? I don’t need to agree, but it would be good to understand why so that perhaps there can be a way that each person’s beliefs can be respected.

I have been reading around the world to provide myself with different perspectives and learn about how others live. I know this has impacted me. I had been a lover of the pomp from the Royal families since I was a child. Now, however, when I was watching the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, I have a different reaction. I am disgusted by the pomp, especially seeing the military in force. It is the egos of this family’s ancestors that went around the world spreading disease and hatred, killing off cultures that had been in place long before them. The legacy they left is something that the world continues to struggle with daily.

Azar Nafisi’s theory that having a curious mind leads to challenge and understanding is one I believe in. It is two sides of a coin. You are to ask questions, but also gain empathy toward others. It should be our responsibility to do both. If we do not, we will only continue to divide ourselves into small groups that continue to belittle and dismiss others. That is the most dangerous thing to do. The lack of empathy will be the fall of our civilization.  

So go out and choose something to read that you would not usually pick.

book-review, books, Hispanic and Latinx Cultures, reading

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez

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This book is very complex, but also very simple.

The story begins with us following Olga while she is working to make a bride and her uber-rich family happy by ordering hand-made napkins, while making sure she has added enough to use at her cousin’s wedding in a few weeks. We meet her congressman brother, Prieto, as he greets his constituents – the part of the job he loves most. After he returns to his office, we hear him being summoned for a meeting with Arthur Selby – someone not a constituent or a donor – which will be resentfully attended.

As we learn more from each of these siblings, you learn of how their father Johnny was a revolutionary looking to change schooling to make the next generations of kids more equal, but returned from Vietnam as a heroin addict. After meeting and marrying Blanca, also a revolutionary, they had two children. While clean for a stretch, Johnny descended back into drugs, crack and became infected with HIV/AIDS. Blanca kept her eye on the revolution, giving speeches globally, until one day she left on one of these trips, but never returns. Olga was 13 and Prieto was 17 when their mother left. Because of their father’s habit that kept him in and out of jail, their Abuelita raised them, with the large family all helping.

While physically abandoned, each child continued to hear from Blanca and what she thought of their life choices via mail – no return address and no way to contact her. Neither shared with the other that they received these communications. The revolutionary diet of rhetoric they were brought up on, even with absent parents, impacted them, as did watching their father struggle with trying to provide for them while being chained to his addiction.  

Prieto took a grassroots approach to this revolution, first as a councilman, then as a congressman. Teased as “pollyanna” he didn’t have a side hustle – something that everyone else seemed to have going as an open secret. Olga took the educational route, gaining entry into an ivy league school where she looked safe enough, but never felt like she fit in or what to do next. Getting in had been the goal for her, while for those of Ivy-type families it was only the start of the chase.

Both siblings were faced with the realities of what the “establishment” was and how this establishment abused the power of it. Those with money, status, and skin were always plotting to keep it, and more importantly keep it from people not like them. Because of the systemic biases that have been built into all systems, education, housing, pay, healthcare and more, life is stacked against everyone “else.” The story highlights how people of color must decide on buying into the establishment version of success, or their own culture’s version.

The story is about how to use power to get what you want. It also highlights that these traits exists on both sides of the coin – the revolutionary mother was manipulating them and countless others to get what she wanted. It is the extremes of each side that pit us against each other – and that power itself, regardless of where it comes from, corrupts.

Extremely well written, engaging and thought provoking. This story of disenfranchisement, hidden secrets and the desire to be loved lays bare that we each must find our own definition of success, embrace the life you have and be open to ask for help when you need it.  

African Experience, book-review, books, read around the world, reading

Hate has too many places to live: Abyssinian Chronicles / Uganda

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Written as a novel, this is a semi-autobiographical tale of a family’s existence in Uganda in the 20th century. The racial, religious, gender and economic strife is all here. The story begins in a confusing way, setting the stage to meet the main character. At approximately 100 pages in I finally figured out when and who we were supposed to be focusing on. The historical information on the family, however, was needed to make the next 300 pages make sense.

Set in Uganda, we are introduced to the deep-rooted Catholic church’s influence, as well as the Muslim and Pagan traditions. These traditions tend to mix together, with some being incorporated into others. The influences of the outside cultures, Catholic and Muslim, is due to the evangelical history of Ethiopia (formerly Abyssinia) and the traders from the Middle East that came with the British. This becomes important when the reign of Idi Amin begins.  

Having an understanding of the history of Uganda would have helped, but this was covered in the first 100 pages through how the family members were impacted. The politics were not the focus, but the impact on the family. Information on what was happening was not central to living lives in the villages at that time. Early in the 20th century the tsetse fly spread a “sleeping sickness” pandemic, killing approximately 300,000. 1962 brought independence from Britain, the first election bringing Dr Milton Obote to power. 1967 brought a new constitution, giving more power to the Prime Minister, Obote. In 1971 Idi Ami overthrew the government and began a reign of terror – killing anyone that did not agree with him. Then the war with Tanzania, which Amin lost, and Obote returned to run a country that was decimated economically and ecologically. A new “plague”, HIV/AIDS then swept the African country.

The story starts in the time of independence, with the beginning being like the sleeping sickness – slow but gotten through. The family is a macrocosm of the country. Serenity (the son of a clan elder that had no interest in leading) and Padlock (a woman that was too brutal with her charges as a nun that led her to be thrown out of the nunnery) were the first despots that we encounter. Padlock required complete obedience from her children, and was brutal in enforcing her rule, while Serenity allowed this to happen as long as he was not impacted.   Mugezi, their eldest son, was never liked by Padlock and took the brunt of her hatred. He learned early on how to survive, instigate, and infuriate those in power. Padlock gets her way to send Mugezi to become a priest. Within the church walls, however, the next set of despots is found, with upperclassmen terrorizing the new students as the priests look the other way, or the controlling nature of the priest to have feasts of good food while the students watched and received mealy porridge.   

Through all of these tests, Mugezi learns how to survive, profit and exact revenge. These skills are what will allow him to survive the ongoing tragedy he is living through. To the very end, Mugezi relies upon his understanding of human nature and his ability to leverage this while not being too greedy.

This story is not easy to read. Awash with violence, the value of human life is cheap. The outright bigotry, of whites against blacks, blacks against Indians, Catholic versus Muslim, is prominent – the white Priest calling the black ministry students monkeys, the glee of the blacks when the Indians were deported, the smugness of the Catholics that only sinners got the “slimming” sickness (AIDS) – are all in the open. The hatred for each of the “others” is breathtaking in strokes, and the root of the cause of so much destruction. I kept looking for hope at the end, but I am not sure I found it.

While this book was well written, you need to be able to handle the horrors that are brought forth. I read this book at a time when I am personally struggling with the ongoing exposure of the deep hatred that remains in the Unites States. The fact that this has never gone away, or truly lessened for those that believe and teach this hatred is overwhelmingly depressing for me. In a world that has become so connected, how does this hatred of others still exist? As with Uganda, the answers are tied in not only racial issues, but are complicated by economic, religious and gender constraints also. These are all entangled and cannot be separated. We need brave souls to stand together to work toward a total solution that is based in respect for human life and beliefs. In 2022 they say there is much to look forward to for Uganda. I hope that is true there, and everywhere else in this world.

African Experience, book-review, books, Family Drama, read around the world, reading

Baking Cakes and Burying Hoopies

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Baking Cakes in Kigali / Rwanda & When Hoopies go to heaven / Swaziland

Baking Cake in Kigali is in a similar vein as the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Meet Angel. She makes the most wonderful cakes. She has started this business while her husband Pius is a special consulting in Rwanda, rebuild the country after the genocide. They are not from Rwanda, they are Tanzanian. Angel and Pius are raising their five grandchildren. Three are their late son Joseph’s children. He had tested positive, but he was shot in a robbery. The other two are their daughter Vinas’ who died “from blood pressure.”  Pius and Angel are working so hard to provide for this second family, as so many grandparents across the African continent are doing.

Angel, who prides herself on being a professional person, faces the realities of life with grace and humility. The family lives on a compound for the many volunteers that have come to rebuild after the war. She takes people under her wing, and cares for them. Her main concern is to make people happy. We learn through Angel the difficulties that people face everyday. The status of women – the number of men being so scarce – pit them against each other as they look for partners. The unavailability of work leaving no choice but to sell their bodies in order to feed their families. Undercurrents through the country are the knowledge that you may have survived, but you are not sure if the person next to you was part of the massacre, or is somehow related to someone that was. Then there is the ever-present HIV.

This book takes on these difficult topics, such as the HIV crisis that has left so many grandparents raising children and the genocide with skill. While ever present, it is not maudlin or gratuitous. You see though different characters what it is like to be a child of a collaborator, to be the only survivor of a family, and the pain that remains as people try to move on with life.

All of this while you watch Angel go to HIV positive women that are being taught how to sew to keep them from selling themselves on the streets, buying fabric from women that are making their own patterns to survive, and standing in for a mother in jail for collaboration at a wedding. The wedding itself shows how the country is trying to heal – step by step learning to live together in the present with people from all over Africa, and the world, coming together – even the different groups that had been at war in Rwanda.

Through this empathy and openness to learning something new, Angel helps to heal hearts and make differences, both large and small for the whole community. There is hope for the country in what Angel is able to accomplish, which leads you to believe there is hope for the country in real life. Well worth the read.

I actively search for more stories with Angel and found When Hoopies Go to Heaven. The family has left Rwanda and moved to Swaziland. This installment is told from the point of view of the middle child of Joseph, Benedict.  Benedict is fascinated with all animals. Through his attempts to do the right thing, what he felt Angel or Pius would do, similar connections are made between different groups. While the changed POV was not as compelling as the first book, the same humanity and wonderful writing is found. I will continue to look for more books by Gaile Parkin for the pure delight in reading, and the added bonus of learning about different cultures. 

Black Experience, book-review, books, reading

Homegoing

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In my first attempt of the year I head to my library’s website.  My first stop – my lists of saved titles to read.  Around the World – my list of books to read from every country – beckons me.  After reading many Top Ten lists of 2021, I choose Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. I click the button to reserve my copy.  In one week, it is in my house. 

The story pulls me in immediately. First, we meet Effia, a girl in a village in Ghana.  Her father is “a big man” in the village.  Her mother beats her often.  The chief is set to marry her when she becomes a woman, but her mother tells her to keep that a secret.  Instead of earning an honored place in the village as a first wife, Effia is given into marriage with a British officer.  When she goes to Cape Coast Castle, she discovers there are people that look like her in the dungeon that will be sold as slaves.  She learns quickly that the British will become “mean” when questioned about this.

Next you meet Esi.  She is the daughter of “a big man” in a different village.  Her mother loves her and is always near her side.  It is in this story that you start to hear that people in the North are not human.  The Villagers have conducted raids across the country, being known as a strong tribe to be afraid of.  Prisoners are held in cages in the village center, with people walking by to spit on them because they are not people.  Esi’s mother is forced by her husband to pick a girl to be a house girl.  The mother protects her as best she can.  It is not until after the girl is whipped by the father for dropping two drops of water, at the urging of the rest of the family, that Esi learns that her mother had been a slave before.  As fate has it, it is Esi that ends up in the dungeon below where Effia is.  This is when we learn that these are half sisters, each traveling a very different path from the other. 

I am very uncomfortable reading this book, which is probably the point.  From the first, when I realize that the villagers participated and profited from enslaving their own kind, just from a different village, I am sick.  When I realize the animals that are found around those villages become what these people are called in derogatory terms, I am horrified – I knew of the slur, but this put the pieces together of where the slur came from.  The way groups of people dismiss others – making it easy to treat them badly by stripping them of any humanity – is way too familiar.  This is the tactics that the Nazis took in 1930s Germany against the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and more.  These tactics are not just our history.

This history continues to haunt us.  The legacy of slavery remains in the systemic structures of our world, including education, economic support for the poor, and access to proper mental and physical health resources. We continue to be faced with the stark realities of continued prejudice: Floyd George’s murder, LGBQT+ being thrown off roofs, and women like Malala being shot.  Until we start looking at others as part of us, this will not change.  There continue to be people that need to be better at someone’s cost. They lead the way for others to feel better about themselves by putting others down. They strip the belief in the humanity from those they push down.  All those that participate in this, or that stand by and let it happen, ultimately lose their own humanity. We need to open oppressor’s eyes to this.  Unless we all understand we are in this together, there will be no end. 

This is my reaction from the first third of the book.  My soul is crying, and I can’t continue.  If the rest of the story continues as well written, I can only guess at the depth of feeling and thought it will provoke in its readers.  As for me, I am too saddened by the reality of what this represents, and gripped by the fear that we have not learned enough to keep it from happening again. 

book-review, books, Hispanic and Latinx Cultures, reading

Hispanic Heritage Month 2021

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In honor of Hispanic Month (September 15, 2021 – October 15, 2021), I decided to read about a place I didn’t know much about.  Cuba, an island that was forbidden, ruled by a man that lived longer than anyone expected, cut off from its closest neighbor, with its people fleeing on makeshift rafts at sea.  What did I know about this island?  Bits and pieces – the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, Cuban cigars, and the place where Sky Masterson takes Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls.  I figured it was time to learn more about the people, and maybe something about the politics of the place.

Since I love historical fiction, and learn about cultures and how they got there from novels, it made sense for me to pick one for the task.  Next Year in Havana is a mix of historical details, sociological analysis, and a love story.  Told from two women’s perspectives and times – Elisa Perez, debutante Cuban in high society of 1958 and Marisol Ferrera, freelance writer and member of Miami’s Cuban exile community in 2017. 

Marisol, raised by her grandmother Elisa, is coming home to Cuba, where her grandparents fled with the family when Castro took over.  She brings with her memories of stories told to her about the way things had been, and a tin containing the ashes of her grandmother, who told her those stories.  Marisol is to find the final resting place for the ashes in Elisa’s beloved Cuba.  Met at the airport by Elisa’s childhood best friend’s grandson, Marisol comes into possession of a pack of love letters from her grandmother to a man that was not her grandfather.  This leads her on a quest for the truth.

Then, as before, asking questions can be bad for your health.  Through eyes of revolutionaries, each woman in her time is faced with the stark reality that their lives were pampered, and that poverty was real and near.  The details on how hard life had been on those that remained in Cuba, making a life through the hardships, versus those that left Cuba and settled in Miami clinging to what Cuba had been.  It even goes into some detail on how the island nation had always wanted to be free, but was always at a larger country’s whim – America, Russia, and even Venezuela.  The war that brought about Castro’s revolution, and the war that put Batista in power before him, were all about democracy – and the hope to return to constitutional law.

Ultimately, the question “are you a Cuban first or an American first”, and what that means to those that stayed and those that left simmers under the surface, as does the uneasy peace made to allow the regimes continue the grip on the people.  Love, family love, romantic love, and love of country are at odds with each other in this novel.  Nothing is easy, choices must be made, and you make the best of what you are given. 

Other books that I have enjoyed from Hispanic authors, in no particular order:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent by Julia Alverez

In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alverez

Afterlife by Julia Alverez

The Alchemist by Pualo Coehlo

Black Experience, book-review, books, reading

The book of lost friends

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This is a book with at least two stories, all that intersect around family, and history.  We start meeting Benedetta Silva, known as Benny as she starts her first job teaching at a poor rural school in Louisiana to help pay off her student debt.  Although she is white, she is living in poverty until her first paycheck arrives.  She is intimidated by the unruly teens that await her, fighting with each other, and never listening.  She tries everything to get them engaged, even buying treats for those that are hungry from her low salary. 

Next we meet Hannie and her slave family were being moved from Louisiana to Texas by a relative to keep them from being set free.  Out of sight of the owners, the relative starts to sell off the family in ones or twos the whole way there.  The last to be sold, Hannie finally gets the buyer to understand that she was stolen and sold away from her rightful owner.  Along the way, she had kept track of who was sold where, in the hopes to reunite with them in the future.

As we follow Hannie, who is returned to the original plantation alone but strikes out as a sharecropper with a few other slaves that had remained, we see that she is smart and resourceful.  Lavinia, the plantation owner’s pampered daughter, meets with Juneau Jane, the plantation owner’s mulatto daughter by his mistress.  Afraid that Lavinia’s arrival meant that the head of the Gossett plantation was dead, Hannie listens in to find out what is happening because there was only one year left on the lease before the sharecropping land was to be free and clear for her and those working it.  The three end up in an odyssey to find the father, to determine who was entitled to what property.  At one point the three end up in a church, where the walls were covered in posters of letters to friends, where people were looking to reconnect with those that had been sold away. 

Benny, who is renting out a home near the plantation because it was the cheapest she could find, needs help when the roof starts to leak. Through this challenge, Benny meets marvelous women that have kept the community together and give Benny hope for surviving.  Through the stories that Benny hears from Mrs T, she decides that this is the story that would resonate with her students, and asks her to come and tell it to the kids.  The kids are hooked and come up with a way to bring the stories to life.  While not approved by the school board, made up of rich white folks, the stories are coming from the Carnegie Library, a source of pride of the community at one time.  Facing a threatening police force, and the school board that sends their own kids to a private school instead, Benny is told to just let the kids get a vocational education as they were not better than that. 

Throughout the chapters flipping between the two, actual letters written and sent are included.  These had been published in the Southern Methodist newspaper and was shared via pulpits across the country.  The heartwrenching stories behind each of these hit home for me.  I did not know that these adverts had been created for people to finds each other in the late 1800 – early 1900s.  I did, however, understand these completely.  As a Jew, I am fully aware that after WWII, the same was happening in the displacement camps throughout Europe with people searching for any connections that may be left.  It is the guilt at being alive, combined by the fear of being alone, that makes these so sad.  While the longing is always there, sometimes it is easier not to ask the question for fear of the answer.

That also is true when it comes to a hard past.  In the Louisiana is the reality that slavery did happen.  Ancestors we part.  But in order to remain in power, the stories and intimidation continued.  It is this need to keep the power structure as it is, and the fear of what will happen if it is not, that keeps the true history of the plantation and those that lived on it.  Until you face the choices that you made, good or bad, and acknowledge them, you are doomed to spend your life covering up for them.