Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund - Available

Four Spirits

A Novel

by Sena Jeter Naslund
Isabel Keating
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

In Four Spirits, Sena Jeter Naslund weaves together the lives of blacks and whites, racists and civil rights advocates, violent repression and peaceful protest to create an epic tapestry of American social transformation. At the heart of the novel is a sheltered young white college student, raised by genteel aunts, who first witnesses and then joins the freedom movement in the racial hotbed that was Birmingham, Alabama of the 1960s. Stella's life is forever altered by her new friendships with black women and by the dangerous conflagration engulfing everyone and everything she has known.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    May 1, 2006

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780792743927
      • File size: 526961 KB
      • Duration: 18:17:50

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      It is 1963, in Alabama. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., writes his now famous "Letter From the Birmingham Jail," Police Chief Bull Connor uses fire hoses and attack dogs on peaceful demonstrators, and four young girls are murdered when the Baptist church is bombed. Amid these real events, Isabel Keating brings Naslund's many fictional characters into vivid relief. Her Southern accents are never caricatures. Her authentic rendering of supremacists and integrationists, the blessed and the abused in this time of cultural upheaval, spotlights ordinary souls who must face their personal demons, their heritage of bigotry, and the moral complexities of a changing world. Naslund's compassion and understanding of the time, the people, and the events, combined with a sensitive reading by Keating, elevate Four Spirits into quality fiction. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 14, 2003
      During the civil rights conflict, Birmingham, Ala., was notorious for the ferocity of its racial bigotry: peaceful demonstrators attacked with fire hoses and dogs by police chief Bull Connor; the Klan-set explosion at a black church that killed four little girls. The four victims are only background figures in Naslund's (Ahab's Wife) faithful and moving evocation of the city and the era, but they appear to several characters in the form of spirits who promise the reconciliation to come. The novel is constructed as a series of vignettes that follow a dozen or so characters whose lives finally intersect in entirely credible ways, and who serve as emblems of the divided citizens of Birmingham, some who bitterly fought integration and others who persevered in their struggle for equality. As such, it's a panorama of the social landscape of the Deep South during its violent crucible of change. Naslund, who grew up in Alabama, writes with a deep, instinctive compassion for the South's tragic heritage of racial hatred, and an understanding of the high toll paid by people committed to justice. She develops her plot in a leisurely fashion that initially may leave readers somewhat frustrated, but her method eventually pays off in stunning scenes, vivid with action, color and emotion, that recreate both the horror and the heroism. The characters pivot around Stella Silver, a white college student who is horrified by the glee in her community when JFK is assassinated, and who is moved to activism. In its authentic, balanced evocation of daily life across a wide spectrum of the black and white communities, this novel justifies its length and measured pace, and credibly renders the faith and courage that brought redemption to a blood-soaked city. Agent, Joy Harris. 21-city author tour
      . (Sept.)Forecast:Naslund treads familiar ground here, which may deflect a few readers, but her powers of synthesis and fidelity to historical detail could make this a big seller, on a par with
      Ahab's Wife.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading