The Fall of Rome: A Novel
by Martha Southgate
List Price:
Our Price: $2.42
You Save: $13.57 (85%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Martha SouthgateEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-12-31
ISBN: 0743227212
Number of pages: 219
Publisher: Scribner
Book Reviews of The Fall of Rome: A Novel
Book Review: Compelling
Summary: 5 Stars
Jerome Washington has come a long way since his dusty days as the son of a Georgia sharecropper, days when he and his brother Isaiah were "one brown boy", touching dusty knees together on the front porch, sharing the same bed and both smelling of Dixie Peach hair pomade. But when Jerome's mother flees her loveless marriage (the work ate his father's heart and his hope) to the big city among many blacks of The Great Migration, everything changes. Jerome is favored because he excels at his studies and Isaiah slips away into a world of afros and tight synthetic shirts, becoming everything his "Little Professor" big brother isn't.
Washington makes it to Harvard with heart and mind ready to change the world as his mother hopes he will. The Kent State incident and a broken heart from a fellow revolutionary send Washington into another direction--the study of the classics. Here he is alone, safe and undisturbed. After an ineffective (in his mind)stint in the Boston Public schools and more family tragedy, he lands at Chelsea, a secluded--and exclusive--school for boys in Connecticut. While the world changes and many "other negroes" come and go from the campus with their angry, insistent ways, Washington stays on in quiet excellence, shaping the minds of tomorrow's presidents, changing the world the only way he knows how, by making the best of the chance he's been given, though he chafes at the role of "minority recruiter" and other school political demands, why should the color of his skin play any role in his job?
Rashid Bryson is alive. His older brother, who went off to a private prep school on scholarship the year before, only to be gunned down while going for a coke at the corner store, is not. Tired of watching his parents drown their grief in too much food and too few words, Rashid decides to make his own escape, to Chelsea, a school whose brochure he found in his brother Kofi's things. There is no help from his parents like what his brother received. Only numb nods of agreement and empty goodbyes when he's accepted. When he sees the wide open campus, with cows, barns and a sea of creamy-skinned white faces, he wonders if he hasn't traded one loneliness for another. At least there is that black Latin teacher, right? Wrong. After joining Mr. Washington's class and learning more about his roommate, the son of a black lawyer, Rashid is sure he's the odd man out. Only Jana Hansen, his English teache seems to have a clue.
Jana Hansen has never seen so much chalk in a classroom. And she didn't even have to bring it herself. Before Chelsea, she spent twenty years in the Cleveland public schools, often the only white face in a s sea of brown and gold faces. There was never enough there. Not enough time, enough money, even love...even for one of the students she'd held out the most hope for, she hadn't been able to save him. Or her marriage. With her only daughter living as a LUG (lesbian until graduation) at her alma mater, nothing seems left but to return to a private school in her native state and teach in classrooms with plush carpet, prepared students and plenty of chalk. Two things, however, never figured into her plan--Jerome Washington and Rashid Bryson. Both will change her forever.
They certainly changed me. Though I expected to relate most to the dreadlocked and defiant Rashid, I found pieces of myself in the Jerome Washington, the intelligent negro determined to prove that race doesn't matter, even if it means denying the very core of his existence to do so; and Jana Bryant, an open-hearted impulsive woman learning how to live again after betrayal, learning to find her place in a world that doesn't always make sense. Jana sees both sides of the world--the side lined with skin like hers and the side that some people either assimilate or ignore. The side that makes her see a man and not a black man when she looks at Jerome Washington's graceful fingers, the side that makes her hurt when school diversity is about getting donor funds more than making a difference.
This novel is dense, but not long. Quiet but powerful. For a look at race from several sides and both the damage and healing words can bring, check this one out. There is quite a bit of profanity in places, but this is a young adult title too.
Summary of The Fall of Rome: A Novel
Latin instructor Jerome Washington is a man out of place. The lone African-American teacher at the Chelsea School, an elite all-boys boarding school in Connecticut, he has spent nearly two decades trying not to appear too "racial." So he is unnerved when Rashid Bryson, a promising black inner-city student who is new to the school, seeks Washington as a potential ally against Chelsea's citadel of white privilege. Preferring not to align himself with Bryson, Washington rejects the boy's friendship. Surprised and dismayed by Washington's response, Bryson turns instead to Jana Hansen, a middle-aged white divorcée who is also new to the school -- and who has her own reasons for becoming involved in the lives of both Bryson and Washington.Southgate makes her debut as a writer to watch in this compelling, provocative tale of how race and class ensnare Hansen, Washington, and Bryson as they journey toward an inevitable and ultimately tragic confrontation.
Prejudice & Racism Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Prejudice & Racism Books
White Lilacsby Carolyn Meyer
Sandpiper; Published: 2007-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.26
Price in other shops:
Underground Man (Odyssey/ Harcourt Young Classic)by Milton Meltzer
Sandpiper; Published: 2006-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.98
Price in other shops:
I Am Rosa Parks (Penguin Young Readers, L4)by Rosa Parks, Jim Haskins
Penguin Young Readers; Published: 1999-12-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Jafta - The Homecoming (Picture Puffin)by Hugh Lewin
Puffin Books; Published: 1996-01-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $818.77
The Friendshipby Mildred D. Taylor
Puffin; Published: 1998-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.80
Price in other shops:
The Case of the Scaredy Cats (I Can Read Book 2)by Crosby Bonsall
HarperCollins; Published: 1971-11-30; Library Binding; Book
Best price: $6.96
Price in other shops:
Black Is Brown Is Tanby Arnold Adoff
Harpercollins Childrens Books; Published: 1987-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Journey to Jo'burg (Essential Modern Classics)by Beverly Naidoo
HarperCollins Children's Books; Published: 2008; Paperback; Book
Cascades Multicultural Books Pack (Collins Cascades)Collins Educational; Published: 1998-02-03; Paperback; Book
Jubilee Journeyby Carolyn Meyer
Sandpiper; Published: 2007-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Lakota Womanby Mary Crow Dog, Richard Erdoes
Harper Perennial; Published: 1991-03-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.90
Price in other shops:
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Timesby Howard Zinn
Beacon Press; Published: 2002-09-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
The Other Face of America: Chronicles of the Immigrants Shaping Our Futureby Jorge Ramos
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-04-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.50
Price in other shops:
The Glass Menagerieby Tennessee Williams
New Directions; Published: 1999-06-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.57
Price in other shops:
A Raisin in the Sunby Lorraine Hansberry
Vintage; Published: 2004-11-29; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops:
The Heidi Chronicles.by Wendy Wasserstein, Wendy Wasserstein
Dramatists Play Service, Inc.; Published: 1998-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.95
Price in other shops:
A Cool Million and The Dream Life of Balso Snell: Two Novelsby Nathanael West
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2006-06-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.56
Price in other shops:
Visions of America: Personal Narratives from the Promised LandPersea; Published: 1999-07-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
The Taste of Saltby Martha Southgate
Algonquin Books; Published: 2011-09-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.60
Price in other shops:
Third Girl from the Leftby Martha Southgate
Mariner Books; Published: 2006-09-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.28
Price in other shops: