One Million Nightingales by Susan Straight

I've read some of her early works and her style of writing made me crazy. I don't know the name of the style nor can I point to another writer and say, like that. I've read that style before and didn't care for it.

I know she's got a descriptive voice, I've read articles by her and like them. It's just her poetic style in a full length book never hit me in such a way that I could sit down for hours and read.

I picked this up because in a B & N trip we saw Linda D and she highly recommended it to me. When I said hmmmmmm, I'm not a big fan of her style. She asked why and I hemmed and hawed about the above. Man, I hate it when I can't really put my finger on something and my description is so vague. (which is one of the reasons I am not a writer. The other is my innocuous, incessent wordiness).

Linda loved it, although admitted she'd read some reviews about the style of writing that weren't negative per se but not exactly glowing either. She said she liked it so well, that she felt I would too and would even go as far as giving me my money back if I didn't like it.

How can you beat a deal like that? Bookseller giving your money back after you read the book?

All that said (whew) I liked it a lot. A whole lot. The style still made me crazy but the story was soooo good that I let that go (most of the time).

Moinette is born into slavery, a mulatto. Her mother is African and both are living on a cane plantation near New Orleans. Moinette is sold as a young teen leaving her mother behind without word, the sale happened so fast.

It is a story of her life, her thoughts, the always present thought of her mother. Yes, it's filled with hardship, rape, family and sometimes the kindness of strangers.

It has the strength of The Color Purple in all of it's characters and their lives. This isn't a sensationalism book, sometimes I find books of slavery (amongst other kinds of themes) to be more about race/bigotry than the human condition.

So yeah, read this one.