Cane River Book Review

US History 1610
Book Review
April 27, 2003

Tademy, Lalita. Cane River. New York: Warner Books, 2001.

Cane River is a familial saga that tells the story of the author’s ancestors. The story begins in 1834 with story of Suzette, the author’s great-great grandmother. She is a slave living in the Cane River area of Louisiana. Tademy tells Suzette’s story for about twenty years, including her trials and tribulations of being a house slave on a medium-size Creole plantation. Suzette is raped by Eugene Durant, a Frenchman who is related to her owner. She eventually has two children by this man, one of whom is a daughter named Philomene. After Philomene becomes a teenager, the story shifts to tell her story. Narcisse Fredieu, another relative of Philomene’s owner, becomes smitten with her, and even though he is quite older than she, wealthy, and a white man, they eventually have eight children together. The oldest of the eight children is Emily. Emily is born ...