Freshwater Road

This critically acclaimed debut novel from pioneering retired actress, writer, and social activist. Denise Nicholas, who was involved in the American Civil Rights Movement, and spent two years touring the deep South with the Free Southern Theatre (FST) tells the story of one young woman’s coming of age via the political and social upheavals of the civil rights movement. Nineteen-year-old Celeste Tyree leaves Ann Arbor to go to Pineyville, Mississippi, in the summer of 1964 to help found a voter registration project as part of Freedom Summer. As the summer unfolds, she confronts not only the political realities of race and poverty in this tiny town, but also deep truths about her family and herself.

Drawing on Nicholas’ own show more involvement in the civil rights movement, gives the author the credibility to pen this novel into a work of storytelling fit for the era. The novel won the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award for debut fiction in 2006, as well as the American Library Association’s Black Caucus Award for debut fiction the same year.

I attended a book signing/reading of this book after its release, at the Main Public Library in Detroit on March 15, 2007. Ms. Nichols herself was present. Here it is 2021 and I am just now reading this novel. Actually…I’m listening to the 10th Anniversary edition of the novel thru Audible.

Ms. Nicholas was born on July 12, 1944 in Detroit, Michigan, and having grown up in Michigan myself, I appreciated the setting for Shuck in Detroit names of cities; Ann Arbor, West Detroit, Grosse Pointe, places such as White Castle hamburgers, Fox Theater, Wayne State University, Belle Isle, and the people; Wolfman Jack…etc. I lived near Livernoise and Outer Drive in West Detroit then moved near Ann Arbor, and currently living in Alabama.

I’m so sorry it took me a decade to read this novel that has re-emerged as a very poignant moment in our current state of history and voting freedom that we face in the year 2021. Some of the chapters were short, which still held the cadence of the story in good timing. The novel was both entertaining and packed with memories, history and familiarity.

The writing style is beautifully written in prose. Nichols weaves in euphemisms, and very descriptive words that seem to overemphasize the narrative, but in an artistic way. I enjoyed the journey with Celeste and all of its high and lows along the way from Michigan to Mississippi. I felt that listening to the story in audio was more impactful and reaching. I’m proud to possess this book, autographed by Ms. Nichols in my personal library. It’s a literary achievement!

https://denisenicholas.net/author/ show less

Freshwater Road is about a black college student from Detroit who goes to Mississippi as a civil rights activist during Freedom Summer. Celeste Tyree deals with culture shock and the unbelievable prejudice prevalent in the south at that time, as well as her relationship with her parents, especially her mother.

Nicholas skillfully weaves fact and fiction, and it's easy to believe that any of the characters in Freshwater Road could have been real people in Mississippi during that tumultuous summer of 1964.