This month I’m introducing an author who is new to me – Rochelle Alers. I read her book, Take the Long Way Home which was recommended to me by an author friend.
Women’s fiction writer Rochelle Alers was born and raised in Manhattan, she published her first novel, Hideaway in 1985. Now almost two million copies of her novels are in print, and they have regularly appeared on the Waldenbooks, Borders, and Essence bestseller lists. She has been awarded the Gold Pen Award, the Emma Award, the Vivian Stephens Award for Excellence in Romance Writing, the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, and the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award. After retiring from her job as a Community Liaison Specialist for a state funded abuse program in Long Island, Rochelle writes full-time. For additional information go to https://rochellealers.org/ .
Take the Long Way Home
In a small Mississippi town founded and inhabited by generations of freed slaves, Claudia Patterson was born in the midst of the segregation struggles in America. Ms. Alers seamlessly spans the journey of Claudia’s life through decades, continents and relationships. Capturing readers with Claudia’s early inquisitive, yet childlike thoughts on living in the south during America’s turbulent 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, through her maturity into adult life as a student of numerous languages, Freedom Fighter, wife, and independently successful woman. Intertwined with the influences of the four men who greatly impacted her life in vastly different ways along her journey, this complex study of race, gender and relationship struggles is beautifully crafted by Alers.
Having read many historical fiction novels, for me this one presented the American racial divide from a different perspective. Although living in the South, they were somewhat sheltered due to the fact that her family lived and worked in the small all-negro town of Freedom, Mississippi. Her parents were business owners, who welcomed their only child in 1940. A bit pampered, Claudia enjoyed the love and attention of her parents, her grandmother-who also shared the responsibility of raising her, as well as her mother’s two sisters. Learning perseverance from her parents, strength from her grandmother, the gift of languages from her Aunt Mavis, and a bit of wanderlust from her Aunt Virgie, Claudia had a strong foundation from which to build her life.
In the comfort of her secure environment, as a young girl Claudia learned of the world through the books she read, and of friendship and childhood discoveries with her best friend Janice. Until one day when the girl’s paths separate and we meet the first of the four men. After that, the friend’s paths are never quite able to converge in the same way again.
Beginning at the end, Alers piques our interest with a present-day prologue that concludes with, “…she chided herself for wanting to come back to a place where she’d endured fear and unhappiness, but knew she had to because she needed closure. Claudia did not want to admit to herself that her life was like a book- with a prologue, and then filled with many chapters until it concluded with an epilogue. It didn’t begin in 1940- the year of her birth- but in late spring, 1952, when she’d met Denny Clark for the first time.”
