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The Blog has frequently promoted non-fiction books that document or further expose the issues we share with our readers.
Today we share an inspirational true story of a woman who overcame more odds than any of us can imagine.
The Air Between Our Tubs explores the depths of human depravity, and the resilience that enables us to triumph over it. In situations of the most dire violence and inhumanity shines a gleam of love, endurance, and commitment to a belief in the possibility of goodness. The novel is a testament to the capacity of these values and beliefs to persist and overcome in the face of the evil they encounter. Despite the heart-wrenching realities it explores, The Air Between Our Tubs is a book of profound hope and ultimately a love story.
The Air Between Our Tubs
BORROWED DREAMS
synopsis
The Air Between Our Tubs, set in the American South in the years following Emancipation, depicts with unflinching clarity the violence, degradation, and dehumanization that constituted the very core of the social systems African Americans encountered wherever they turned—and the effects of which remain apparent throughout the nation, as a wide range of recent events make painfully clear. The novel is narrated by the protagonist herself, in a style infused with all the wit and wisdom she needs to draw on to survive the trials she encounters. The music of the prose captures the verve and passion of the lives it traces, and the arc of the narrative follows an epic trajectory, encompassing a vision as broad and embracing as the love that animates her awareness.
The novel follows the life of Sarah Breedlove. Born to a sharecropping family who are finding the new Jim Crow system every bit as punitive as the slavery it replaced, each step of Sarah’s life is overshadowed by the specters of the history in which she finds herself trapped. At an early age, Sarah’s father dies, worn out by the unceasing toil imposed by the owners of the estate on which they sharecrop, and her mother follows him the next day. She and her brother Alex are sent to live with an older sister, Louvenia, in nearby Vicksburg. There they are faced with urban deprivation, and the exploitation that attends on it like a vulture. Louvenia lives with Jesse, an alcoholic whoremonger who keeps her in a state indistinguishable from slavery through the force of his physical abuse and the threat of turning her over to the authorities should she ever try to escape from him. Louvenia is convinced she can be conscripted to the chain-gang should he make good on his threat, and she therefore faces indentured servitude whichever way she turns. Sarah begins helping Louvenia with the laundry she washes to earn a living. It is exhausting, poorly paid work, and most of their income goes to keeping Jesse in drink and women.
Alex finds work in a stable. The owner, Mr. Harold knows Alex has no recourse if he is not paid for his labor, and accordingly takes advantage of him continuously. There he meets Jeffery McWilliams, also know as Riverman. When the two men visit Sarah and Louvenia, there is instant attraction between Sarah and Jeff. Despite Sarah’s resistance, Louvenia and Alex conspire to kindle a romance between the two, and soon their mutual intentions are established. Not long after, Jeff arrives at the house to find Jesse about to rape Sarah. He intervenes, saying that Sarah has agreed to marry him.
They are married soon after, but having nowhere to live, Sarah moves into the loft with Jeff at the stables. Jeff explains his dream to Sarah: to own a piece of land on which he can grow fruit and vegetables, and provide for his family. It seems unattainable, but then Mrs. Harold informs Jeff she is selling the stables, and she gives him a buggy and pair of horses as a parting gift. She also informs him of a cabin outside of town with a small piece of land. It belongs to a friend of hers, who is willing to let it for a small fee, in exchange for the tenants maintaining the place.
Jeff and Sarah move to the cabin outside of the town. They plant fruit trees which evoke Sarah’s memories of The Orchard with her mother at the Burney Plantation. Jeff begins to distill moonshine, to make extra income, as part of his plan to buy the property. Sarah is apprehensive, knowing what the Klan do to Black bootleggers, but Jeff assures her everything will be okay. Sarah continues to help Louvenia with her laundry business, and their home starts to take shape.
When Sarah falls pregnant with their first child, Annie the pastor’s wife, her neighbor in Vicksburg, moves out to the cabin to help her with the preparations and the delivery. After a complicated labor, a baby daughter is born, whom they name Lelia. Jeff and Sarah can see their dreams materializing, where once they seemed entirely unattainable.
One night when Sarah is returning some laundry to Louvenia, she finds Louvenia in her familiar state: beaten black and blue by Jesse, bleeding, sitting at the kitchen table almost senseless. While not an unusual situation, Sarah can see that something is different this time. She convinces Louvenia to escape with her to the cabin. As they are returning, they come upon three Klan members lynching Jeff for distilling moonshine. Sarah is unable to save Jeff. Her dreams shattered, she decides to move to St. Louis with her daughter.
The Air Between Our Tubs explores the depths of human depravity, and the resilience that enables us to triumph over it. In situations of the most dire violence and inhumanity shines a gleam of love, endurance, and commitment to a belief in the possibility of goodness. The novel is a testament to the capacity of these values and beliefs to persist and overcome in the face of the evil they encounter. Despite the heart-wrenching realities it explores, The Air Between Our Tubs is a book of profound hope and ultimately a love story.
Product details
ISBN BOOK 978-1-7374087-0-3
· ASIN : B09F1DKHQW
· Publisher : LEWARO ROAD (August 29, 2021)
· Publication date : August 29, 2021
· Language : English
· File size : 1693 KB
· Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
· Text-to-Speech : Enabled
· Screen Reader : Supported
· Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
· X-Ray : Not Enabled
· Word Wise : Enabled
· Print length : 326 pages
· Lending : Enabled
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