A novel told in dialogue, Day of Tears starts with the events surrounding Pierce Butler's auction of his slaves to pay off his gambling debts. The novel includes the point of views from many of the people involved, both black and white. Rain is used throughout the book whenever more sadness is going to happen. A complex look at slavery and freedom and the relationships between black and white. Emma, a young teen slave, who takes care of the Butler's children, is a pivotal character. There are interludes that have the characters speak as old women and men reflecting on the events in their lives. The Butler girls couldn't have been more different in their outlooks. I really appreciated the variety of perspectives on slavery that were presented, and it gave me much food for thought and sadness at what the people involved endured.
I listened to the audio book. It was a really well done production with multiple voices. ( )

The audio book of this novel is pretty amazing to listen to. All of the characters are voiced by different people. ( )

Richie's Picks: DAY OF TEARS: A NOVEL IN DIALOGUE by Julius Lester, Hyperion/Jump at the Sun, April, 2005, ISBN: 0-7868-0490-4

"Rain is falling down my cheek searching for the sea,
Tomorrow, like the rain, I'll be back home again.
I watch the bus as it pulls out of view.
Someday, like that bus I will be leavin', too.
But you know it breaks my heart to leave you."
--Alice Cooper, "Alma Mater"

Debbie Carney was the most beautiful girl in first grade at Fern Place School in Plainview, Long Island. She was in the same half of Miss Kalish's class as I was when we did our big "multicultural" production that year. We were in the group who dressed up in "Chinese" garb, complemented by the construction paper lanterns we'd crafted for our routine; the other half of the class performed a Mexican hat dance.

Despite moving away from Plainview just before the Beatles' first trip to America, and never again having gotten to see or communicate with Debbie, I can still vividly recall how much I liked her, and the awe and delight that resulted from the afternoon when she invited me along to sit atop the roof of a shed in her backyard and hang out.

"I came upon a child of God, he was walking along the road
And I asked him tell me where are you going, and this he told me."
--Joni Mitchell, "Woodstock"

If--more than forty years later--I can still recall the abrupt end of such a relatively minor childhood friendship, then it makes it near-impossible to conceive of the impact it would have had upon my eight-year-old life if it had been my sister or my parents whom I was forced to leave behind in Plainview. And even way beyond that, I could never begin to know how it'd actually feel to be a child of God and to be sold off in a fashion similar to that which finds me periodically delivering my excess dairy goat population to the Petaluma Auction Yard, from where they go off to a new home--for better or worse--with the highest bidder.

"slave-seller [auctioneer]

(Takes a last noisy sip of coffee) I don't have much respect for a man who wants to cry over some niggers. Man like that don't deserve to own slaves. Why does he care what they think? If he sold some of his mules, he wouldn't care what the mules thought, because a mule can't think. Niggers ain't no different. And to tell the truth, I've seen some mules that had more sense."

Slightly over a century before we left Plainview for the "greener pastures" of a new housing development in Commack, the largest auction of slaves in American history caused the instant termination of the countless and sometimes lifelong interrelationships that existed between the people--young and old--who comprised the vast majority of one slaveowner's "holdings." That owner had unwisely gambled away much of his inheritance and had to pay off his creditors by "liquidating" many of his assets.

"Number 103--Wooster, age 45; field hand and fair mason
Number 104--Mary, age 40; cotton hand
Sold for $300 each."

Shari teaches at Brook Haven Middle School in Sebastopol. There are around 450 students attending the school, essentially 15 homeroom classes of 30 kids each. A schoolwide assembly pretty well fills the bleachers in the gymnasium, and we all know how large a crowd that is--particularly before the principal shushes the kids so that the day's festivities may begin.

"Number 116--Rina, 18; rice, prime young woman
Number 117--Lena, 1
Sold for $645 each"

The collection of humans sold on those two days stormy days in Savannah, Georgia would similarly fill the bleachers at Brook Haven.

"mattie

It's been three days since we've seen the sun. Yesterday it started raining and it hasn't stopped since. The rain is coming down as hard as regret. Will said the rain started up just when the selling began. I ain't never seen a rain like this. Will said, 'This ain't rain. This is God's tears.'

will

Soon as the slave-seller called the name of the first slave he was going to put up for sale, the gray clouds turned black as a burned log. Lightening so bright flashed across the face of heaven, my eyes trembled in their sockets. Thunder rolled from one side of the sky to the other, back and forth, back and forth. My heart was jumping like it wanted to run out of my body and find some place to hide. Then down came the rain hard as sorrow."

Back when they all were babies, Matti's mother served as wetnurse to the current master, Pierce Butler. When Will was a child, he once saved young Pierce from drowning. Matti and Will grew up as slaves together on the plantation, got married, and now have a twelve-year-old daughter, Emma. Meanwhile, Pierce grew up and married an English actress who didn't realize she was marrying into a slaveholding family. The conflict between Pierce and Fanny over slavery resulted in divorce. Their two young daughters were required to stay on the plantation with their father.

It is Emma who has served as a surrogate mother to the two young girls, Sarah and Frances Butler, and it is Master Butler who resents that his daughter Sarah fears him and demands Emma upon waking with tears in the middle of the night. Being a twelve-year-old child herself, Emma is ignorant of that resentment and has no idea that it will be the cause of her suddenly and forever ending up far from her parents, the Butler girls, and the plantation that has been home.

"Number 362--Maria, age 47; rice hand
Number 363--Luna, age 22 rice, prime woman
Number 364--Clementina, age 17; rice, prime young woman
Sold for $950 each"

Through the testimony of the slaves, the members of the Butler family, the slave-seller, the proud new owners, and the shopkeeper who is part of the Underground Railroad, readers are provided a haunting "firsthand" look at slavery in America. The format of the book and the immediacy of the characters speaking to me resulted in my constantly considering set blocking and props for the various "scenes" as I was reading, for this book absolutely begs to be performed.

"mattie

...It's going to be mighty empty in the slave quarters from now on. And mighty quiet. I'm going to miss Junius and the stories he would tell about High John and Brer Rabbit and all the creatures. Wasn't nobody could make me laugh harder than Junius when he got to telling stories. Junius was our preacher, too, and he told us stories from the Good Book, stories about God parting the Red Sea so Moses could lead the slaves away from the Egyptians. Junius going to be telling his stories to different folks from now on and won't nobody be telling us stories. Won't nobody be making music around here either, 'cause master is goin' sell Ezekiel today. Folks lying in the boneyard want to get up and dance when 'ol Ezekiel starts playing that fiddle of his. Ain't gon' be much laughing and dancing around here ever again."

Julius Lester, whose Newbery Honor book TO BE A SLAVE was published back in '68 when I was an eighth grader studying American History, has written a heart-wrenching and triumphant tale that is worth more than a whole tower of American History textbooks.

Look for DAY OF TEARS to be embraced, adopted, awarded, and cherished.

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com ( )

This is a book about slavery and trying to find where you belong. ( )

This novel reads like a play. Very realistic story set during slave times.