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Some Sing Some Cry A Novel Ntozake Shange Ifa Bayeza Books

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Some Sing Some Cry A Novel Ntozake Shange Ifa Bayeza Books

"Some, Sing, Some Cry" is a lengthy, panoramic saga of an African American family that spans seven generations and over 100 years of history. The book is jointly written by novelists and playwrights Ntozake Shange, author of "For Colored Girls who have considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf" and her sister, Ifa Bayeza, author of "The Ballad of Emmett Till". The book begins in the Gullah Islands of South Carolina in the years following the Civil War with Bette Mayfield, known as Mah Bette, and her young granddaughter, Eudora, as the pair flee from the islands to Charleston. Mah Better is a conjurer who sells amulets and casts spells along the Charleston wasterfront. Eudora is driven and ambitious. She hopes to succeed in Charleston's African American high society through her skills as a dressmaker.

The tale of the family continues through Charleston and the end of Reconstruction, to WW I in Europe, to New York City, the outset of WW II in France, to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s and much more. The family is a partial unifying thread for the story as is the varied music and broad musical talents of many of the protagonists. "The Music, Always the Music" as the family history is aptly summarized late in the novel (p. 556) Music is a metaphor for hope and purpose as the characters pursue their dreams.

The family members have their joys and their sorrows. Sexual abuse is a pervasive theme of the novel beginning with Mah Bette and her early forced relationship with the plantation owner. Two of Mah Bette's descendants suffer brutal sexual assaults which result in offspring who, in turn, become major characters in the family saga. Another broad theme of the story is racial prejudice and hatred, both in the South and the North, from slavery through the reinstitution of Jim Crow in the late 1880s, to the brutal beatings and riots against African Americans following WW I to the opposition to school integration in Chicago in the late 1950s. The story has a broad and powerful sweep in its description of African American life.

In general, the women in the book tend to be the stronger characters. They are ambitious, hard working, and goal directed. In most cases, they care for their families. The men, in contrast, are shown most frequently as unambitious, unreliable, and under the sway of their sexual and other impulses. Thus, Eudora, an early character and the granddaughter of Mah Bette, pursues through great adversity her dream of success through her skill as a dressmaker. And several women, Cinnamon and Minnie among them pursue in different ways their dream of musical success, Cinnamon as an opera singer, Minnie as a singer and dancer in cabarets. The men tend to be either sexually abusive or selfish and insensitive. Thus, one of the major male characters, Ray, although not sexually overbearing, spoils his wife's chances for an education and career as a singer when he persuades her to leave Fisk University to marry him. In New York City, Ray's goals to become an architect fall flat leading to frustration and bitterness for himself and hardship for the family. Another early character, Eudora's husband Tom, abandons the family and sells the family farm in South Carolina at a critical moment leaving his wife and daughters to fend for themselves. A sense of sympathy for all the characters and a small number of portrayals of sympathetic men bring a degree of balance to the book and save it, but closely, from deteriorating into an anti-male polemic.

Many of the characters, male and female, show musical gifts which are pursued throughout the story. Perhaps the strongest character, Cinnamon, has a unique gift in her strong soprano voice. In the face of many temptations, Cinnamon pursues with diligence her dream of becoming an African American opera singer and graduating from Juilliard. Cinnamon does not have a high regard for jazz or for most African American music. But most of the other characters pursue African American music from spirituals to jazz and swing to the blues to rhythm and blues and, late in the story, to rock. The emphasis is on the unique African American musical contribution to the United States, while African American gifts for classical music also are celebrated eloquently.

The structure and the length of this novel present difficulties in pacing and in content. Most of the book is set either in Charleston or in New York City. The earlier parts of the story in Charleston are the most engrossing, detailed, and developed. The pace is slow but the authors explore the city late in the nineteenth century and give a good portrayal of the different types of African American life and of the deteriorating situation for African Americans with the end of Reconstruction. As the novel proceeds, it tends to beceome rushed and confused. The chronology of the book seems dubious and there are small anachronism -- events happening seemingly out of time. I was surprised to see several of the early characters, adults in the 1860s, living and active well into the 1930s and beyond. As the novel moves forward, it becomes cluttered with characters and actions that are sketched rather than shown in detail. The characters who live late in the family story, in Alabama and Chicago, Paris, and New York City to some extent are hastily presented at best. Several novels might have been written from the raw material presented in this book. As it stands, "Some Sing, Some Cry" is too long and diffuse.

Many of the individual scenes in the book work well as vignettes. On the whole the book is cubersomely long and not well tied together. Even with these problems, the novel offers a sympathetic overview of the African American experience particularly as it is joined to the power of music and to a sense of hope in African American life.

Robin Friedman


Tags : Amazon.com: Some Sing, Some Cry: A Novel (9780312198992): Ntozake Shange, Ifa Bayeza: Books,Ntozake Shange, Ifa Bayeza,Some Sing, Some Cry: A Novel,St. Martin's Press,031219899X,FIC019000,African American families;Fiction.,Epic fiction.,Historical fiction.,African American families,African AmericanContemporary Women,Epic fiction,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,Fiction-Coming of Age,Fiction-Literary,GENERAL,General Adult,Historical fiction,Literary,NOVEL,United States

Some Sing Some Cry A Novel Ntozake Shange Ifa Bayeza Books Reviews

I loved the timespan. I seldom read books that trace a family lineage through music and history. It wasn’t my choice, but my book club’s selection. I am sure our discussion will take more than an hour and a half!
I liked this book enough to finish it but I agree with other reviewers who stated that it jumped around too much. The narrative skipped around so much sometimes I got confused and could not keep up with the characters, however the characters that were well defined make me want to keep coming back for more. Overall, I think it's a great story with lots of potential it just wasn't executed well.
Excellent price for such an outstanding book!! Love that you can listen with audible after purchase! Please increase your audible library and maybe lower prices a good bit!
Beautiful story with compelling characters. Difficult to read through the hardships and sorrows. Also a very challenging literary style. Will leave lasting memories.
Some Sing, Some Cry was a good story that I enjoyed from the beginning but not the end. The experiences of the black race from reconstruction and over a hundred years afterward incorporated all the major racial events in America. The book was of interest because it was about actual people instead of a people without personality, This approach humanized the racial strife. The story also had a representation of black people and the various opinions and debates within a family on how to live in a country dominated by white control. It was refreshing to see the levels of discrimination, that between the races as well as that within the black race itself.

If the pace and style of writing in the beginning of the book had continued through the end, I could have enjoyed the entire book. However, about two thirds way into the book, I felt rushed and confused because I wasn't given the opportunity to "know" the characters as I had in the beginning. Hence, the rating of three as opposed to four stars
I finished reading 'Some Sing, Some Cry' four days ago, and it's been a sad four days. I was so involved with the characters and their lives, leaving them was a major loss. As another reviewer said, the book zooms along, almost too fast at some points -- but to cover 200 years of history in a reasonable amount of time and space these sister-authors must have felt it necessary. Yes, they could have lingered and gone into every character in greater depth -- but it would've been an entirely different book. I liked how they compressed their stories so that the people in each generation are seamlessly connected to those that came before; it's my guess the writers wanted to accomplish exactly that. They've given us a way of looking at the history of African-Americans from the end of slavery to the present day, making us feel how short this history really is, and how much the past informs the present.

On a personal note, I'm curious as to how they wrote the book together, and wish they'd write about their process. At times I thought I could identify some of shange's passages, having read her before; particularly the way she weaves music into the narrative so it becomes as much a part of the story as dialog or events.

I've loved the work of ntozake shange ever since "for colored girls who've considered suicide when the rainbow is enough." She isn't very prolific, but when she does write a play or a poem or a novel, it's well worth the wait. Still, this book has me hungry for more. I'd love it if the authors decided to focus in on one or a few of the characters from the book, and take them further. Can you writers hear me? Encore!
"Some, Sing, Some Cry" is a lengthy, panoramic saga of an African American family that spans seven generations and over 100 years of history. The book is jointly written by novelists and playwrights Ntozake Shange, author of "For Colored Girls who have considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf" and her sister, Ifa Bayeza, author of "The Ballad of Emmett Till". The book begins in the Gullah Islands of South Carolina in the years following the Civil War with Bette Mayfield, known as Mah Bette, and her young granddaughter, Eudora, as the pair flee from the islands to Charleston. Mah Better is a conjurer who sells amulets and casts spells along the Charleston wasterfront. Eudora is driven and ambitious. She hopes to succeed in Charleston's African American high society through her skills as a dressmaker.

The tale of the family continues through Charleston and the end of Reconstruction, to WW I in Europe, to New York City, the outset of WW II in France, to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s and much more. The family is a partial unifying thread for the story as is the varied music and broad musical talents of many of the protagonists. "The Music, Always the Music" as the family history is aptly summarized late in the novel (p. 556) Music is a metaphor for hope and purpose as the characters pursue their dreams.

The family members have their joys and their sorrows. Sexual abuse is a pervasive theme of the novel beginning with Mah Bette and her early forced relationship with the plantation owner. Two of Mah Bette's descendants suffer brutal sexual assaults which result in offspring who, in turn, become major characters in the family saga. Another broad theme of the story is racial prejudice and hatred, both in the South and the North, from slavery through the reinstitution of Jim Crow in the late 1880s, to the brutal beatings and riots against African Americans following WW I to the opposition to school integration in Chicago in the late 1950s. The story has a broad and powerful sweep in its description of African American life.

In general, the women in the book tend to be the stronger characters. They are ambitious, hard working, and goal directed. In most cases, they care for their families. The men, in contrast, are shown most frequently as unambitious, unreliable, and under the sway of their sexual and other impulses. Thus, Eudora, an early character and the granddaughter of Mah Bette, pursues through great adversity her dream of success through her skill as a dressmaker. And several women, Cinnamon and Minnie among them pursue in different ways their dream of musical success, Cinnamon as an opera singer, Minnie as a singer and dancer in cabarets. The men tend to be either sexually abusive or selfish and insensitive. Thus, one of the major male characters, Ray, although not sexually overbearing, spoils his wife's chances for an education and career as a singer when he persuades her to leave Fisk University to marry him. In New York City, Ray's goals to become an architect fall flat leading to frustration and bitterness for himself and hardship for the family. Another early character, Eudora's husband Tom, abandons the family and sells the family farm in South Carolina at a critical moment leaving his wife and daughters to fend for themselves. A sense of sympathy for all the characters and a small number of portrayals of sympathetic men bring a degree of balance to the book and save it, but closely, from deteriorating into an anti-male polemic.

Many of the characters, male and female, show musical gifts which are pursued throughout the story. Perhaps the strongest character, Cinnamon, has a unique gift in her strong soprano voice. In the face of many temptations, Cinnamon pursues with diligence her dream of becoming an African American opera singer and graduating from Juilliard. Cinnamon does not have a high regard for jazz or for most African American music. But most of the other characters pursue African American music from spirituals to jazz and swing to the blues to rhythm and blues and, late in the story, to rock. The emphasis is on the unique African American musical contribution to the United States, while African American gifts for classical music also are celebrated eloquently.

The structure and the length of this novel present difficulties in pacing and in content. Most of the book is set either in Charleston or in New York City. The earlier parts of the story in Charleston are the most engrossing, detailed, and developed. The pace is slow but the authors explore the city late in the nineteenth century and give a good portrayal of the different types of African American life and of the deteriorating situation for African Americans with the end of Reconstruction. As the novel proceeds, it tends to beceome rushed and confused. The chronology of the book seems dubious and there are small anachronism -- events happening seemingly out of time. I was surprised to see several of the early characters, adults in the 1860s, living and active well into the 1930s and beyond. As the novel moves forward, it becomes cluttered with characters and actions that are sketched rather than shown in detail. The characters who live late in the family story, in Alabama and Chicago, Paris, and New York City to some extent are hastily presented at best. Several novels might have been written from the raw material presented in this book. As it stands, "Some Sing, Some Cry" is too long and diffuse.

Many of the individual scenes in the book work well as vignettes. On the whole the book is cubersomely long and not well tied together. Even with these problems, the novel offers a sympathetic overview of the African American experience particularly as it is joined to the power of music and to a sense of hope in African American life.

Robin Friedman