Eleanor Shearer – River Sing Me Home
Posted 28th August 2023
Category: Reviews Genres: 2020s, Historical
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When Eleanor Shearer was in her mid teens, she went to an exhibition that looked at the stories of slavery and the impact on later generations of black people. It made its mark on her; when she finished her university Masters, in which her thesis was about the case for reparations for the Caribbean, she thought back to her initial idea for fiction and realised she already had a lot of the research done for a novel. River Sing Me Home was the excellent result.
The story follows Rachel who, after the plantation owner announces slavery has been ended but then goes on to say how everyone has been mandated to work several more years (the British said newly freed people would need time to adjust to their freedom…), decides to make a run for it and succeeds in escaping. Now free, she is in a position to search for the five children who were taken from her and sold elsewhere. She has no idea how far she will have to go – she’s starting with Barbados where she lives – but she’ll move mountains if she has to.
River Sing Me Home is a novel of great strength, love, and motherhood, which looks at what it means to be free, exploring the question via some of the different options Caribbean slaves took.
Shearer’s development and general creation of the characters is very good. We of course focus most on Rachel who we come to understand early but are given more and more of as time goes on. We meet Nobody, a man who decides to stay travelling with Rachel and, through a couple of tailors, one of Rachel’s children who has a massive impact on the story.
Set in the Caribbean, the story moves through a couple of islands as well as the colony of British Guinea in South America. Whilst of course based on historical fact, and also Shearer’s familial knowledge, the focus on this area of the world allows for full use of the theme of water, which is explored by Shearer with aplomb.
To discuss the contents further risks spoiling the book – suffice to say it looks at different aspects and results of escape, staying and making do, and at the concept of passing. It also shines a light on the Native People who were forced out of their lands.
River Sing Me Home shows a part of history that isn’t much known in the west. Wonderfully told and both harrowing and heartening in equal measure, it’s an excellent and important publication that will hopefully be read by many readers to come.
Publisher: Headline Review (Hachette)
Pages: 365
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-472-29136-3
First Published: 31st January 2023
Date Reviewed: 18th August 2023
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