I met Dedra Johnson at a book signing just before Christmas. Earl Higgins, Dedra, and I were signing our books at the Loyola University's bookstore. I'd been hearing about Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow from friends, bloggers, and others for a coiuple of months. It's not the type of novel I usually read, but Dedra's a local author writing about New Orleans, good enough for me.
Sandrine may not be the type of character I usually get into, but I got into the novel nonetheless. It is a well-written story with lots of local color and a cast of characters who are very easy to love and/or hate, just like family members.
Sandrine Miller is a light-skinned black girl growing up in New Orleans' 7th Ward in the 1970s. Her parents never married. Her father is a physician who moved to Mississippi, and her mother lives next door to Sandrine's grandmother. Sandrine attends a Catholic elementary school near N. Broad St., and spends summers with her father and her paternal grandmother in Mississippi. The book tells the tale of Sandrine's life as she develops from a pre-teen to a young teenager, addressing the issues of not merely a black girl growing up, but a light-skinned girl who is ostracized by friends and family because she "looks white."
Sandrine's life is not an easy one. Her mother isn't much of a mother to her, since she sees too much of Sandrine's father in her. When Sandrine's father's-wife's-daughter (you'll see how this connects in the book), a girl several years younger than her, comes to live with Sandrine and her mother, she feels even further mistreated by her mother, because the darker-skinned girl receives better treatment. Dedra mixes teen anger with racial and sexual injustices in just the right amount to keep the pages turning, wanting to see what happens next and how Sandrine will deal with it.
Some say that Sandrine doesn't cover any new ground, that other authors have addressed these themes, but the local flavor of reading about New Orleans in the 1970s was enough to rope me in where authors like Maya Angelou didn't call to me half as much. Arkansas isn't New Orleans; I was just a few years older than Sandrine, and rode the bus through her neighborhood. Sandrine is Catholic and taught by nuns, and that experience triggers an almost Junigan-collective-unconscious thing when you see it on the written page. If you like New Orleans and you like coming-of-age stories, this one is a winner.
I'm going to offer some more thoughts below the fold. SPOILER WARNING - don't go there if you haven't read the book.
Edward J. Branley is the owner of seashell software and the founder of the New Orleans Street Railway Association, as well as an Independent Computer Consultant specializing in SAN architecture, UNIX and SAN Training.
