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Loading... The Travelers: A Novel (original 2019; edition 2019)by Regina Porter (Author)
Work InformationThe Travelers by Regina Porter (2019)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This quietly spectacular debut novel revolves in concentric circles around two white families, two Black families, and the narrows where they intersect. Each chapter builds on the events and the meetings in both earlier and later times. The Vietnam war has its impact, as does infidelity, rape, domestic violence, and parental neglect, but the overwhelming atmosphere is simultaneously solemn and joyous. Settings are as varied as the Bronx, Portsmouth, NH, Berlin, and Buckner Co, Georgia. Characters range from James Joyce scholars to crabmeat pickers to a Black woman pilot. Each coincidence and unlikely meeting comes as a delightful surprise, and each chapter could stand alone magnificently as a short story on its own. A must read. Quotes:" I remember how still the room was when he died. How the air just left him and there was no difference between his corpse and the metal bed that held it." "It's like once he says he's leaving he's got to follow through and they are both stuck on stubborn." First is a book published last year, Regina Porter’s The Travelers, which takes us from the 1950s through Obama’s first year as president. Porter travels back and forth in time, and she helpfully lists the Cast of Characters and their relationship to each other at the beginning of the novel. At the beginning of each chapter she shares the year that chapter covers. James Vincent Jr. is a successful Manhattan lawyer, who has a son by his first wife Sigrid. Sigrid takes their son Rufus and moves to California, and James remarries. He also has a son by his occasional mistress, but this is not acknowledged by anyone. Rufus marries Claudia, a black woman, whose mother Agnes was traumatized as a young woman, which led her to leave home and marry Eddie, who ends up in Vietnam, serving on a naval ship with his cousins. The men make a decision on that ship that will haunt Eddie. The character who interested me most was Eloise, who was in love with Agnes and devastated when Agnes rebuffed her. Eloise was obsessed with Bessie Coleman, a black aviatrix, and wanted nothing more than to learn how to fly. The families’ stories intersect over generations, and it’s fascinating to see how Porter weaves all of her characters stories together and how strong the pull towards home is for all. I highly recommend it. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesGallimard, Folio (6978)
Meet James Samuel Vincent - an affluent Manhattan attorney who shirks his modest Irish American background but hews to his father's philandering ways. James muddles through a topsy-turvy relationship with his son, Rufus, which is further complicated when Rufus marries Claudia Christie. Claudia's mother - Agnes Miller Christie - is a beautiful African American woman who survives a chance encounter on a Georgia road that propels her into a new life in the Bronx. Soon after, her husband, Eddie Christie, is called to duty on an aircraft carrier in Vietnam, where Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead becomes his life anchor as he grapples with mounting racial tensions on the ship and counts the days until he will see Agnes again. These unforgettable characters' lives intersect with a cast of lovers and friends: the unapologetic black lesbian who finds her groove in 1970s Berlin; a moving man stranded in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during a Thanksgiving storm; two half brothers who meet as adults in a crayon factory; and a Coney Island waitress whose Prince Charming is too good to be true. Written with piercing humor, exacting dialogue, and a beautiful sense of place, Regina Porter's debut is both an intimate family portrait and a sweeping exploration of what it means to be American today. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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