Stand the Storm: A Novel

by Breena Clarke (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $3.25

  Even though Sewing Annie Coats and her son, Gabriel, have managed to buy their freedom, their lives are still marked by constant struggle and sacrifice. Washington's Georgetown neighbourhood, where the Coatses operate a tailor's shop and laundry, is supposed to be a promised land' for former slaves but is effectively a frontier town, gritty and dangerous, with no laws protecting black people. The remarkable emotional energy with which the Coatses wage their daily battles - as they negotiate with their former owner, as they assist escaped slaves en route to freedom, as they prepare for the encroaching war, and as they strive to love each other enough - is what propels STAND THE STORM and makes the novel's tragic denouement so devastating.

• New

  Paperback
  2009

  $25.72

  Even though former slaves Annie Coats and her son Gabriel have managed to buy their freedom, their lives are still marked by constant struggle and sacrifice - to the extent that Annie secretly recalls her days on the plantation with fondness. Washington's Georgetown neighbourhood, where they are seeking to build their new lives - with Gabriel, a tailor, producing uniforms for soldiers and fine suits for pompous politicians, and Annie, a seamstress and laundress, catering to the nearby brothels and stately homes - is supposed to be a safe haven, a 'promised land' for former slaves, but is effectively a frontier town, gritty and dangerous, with no laws protecting black people. In fact, the city's own emancipation efforts in 1862 serve only to compromise the family's status, putting Gabriel's three young daughters (each of them born free of free parents) at risk of becoming the property of the family's former master...