The Talking Drum: Blog Tour and Review

  Book Summary

It is 1971. The fictional city of Bellport, Massachusetts, is in decline with an urban redevelopment project on the horizon expected to transform this dying factory town into a thriving economic center. This planned transformation has a profound effect on the residents who live in Bellport as their own personal transformations take place.

Sydney Stallworth steps away from her fellowship and law studies at an elite university to support husband Malachi’s dream of opening a business in the heart of the black community of his hometown, Bellport.

For Omar Bassari, an immigrant from Senegal, Bellport is where he will establish his drumming career and the launching pad from which he will spread African culture across the world, while trying to hold onto his marriage.

Della Tolliver has built a fragile sanctuary in Bellport for herself, boyfriend Kwamé Rodriguez, and daughter Jasmine, a troubled child prone to nightmares and outbursts.

Tensions rise as the demolition date moves closer, plans for gentrification are laid out, and the pace of suspicious fires picks up. The residents find themselves at odds with a political system manipulating their lives and question the future of their relationships.

                            

                                        REVIEW 

Publicist Laura Marie asked me to join this blog tour for The Talking Drum, the debut novel of Lisa Braxton.  I accepted the free review copy that she supplied because I was interested in the issues involving race, class, immigration and urban culture conflict that Braxton raises.

The summary may lead readers to believe that female protagonist Sydney Stallworth is a character who solely plays a support role to others.  It's true that she's supportive, but I thought she genuinely believed in her husband's business.  The potential of The Talking Drum to become a center for African American culture was important to her.  Yet she also  pursued her own goals as well by becoming a local journalist.  If it weren't for her dedication in following the protests of the African immigrants in Petite Africa against the "urban redevelopment" that would shatter their lives, the truth about the fires in that neighborhood might never have been discovered.  I admired Sydney.   Because she cared so deeply, I felt that she inspired everyone around her to follow their own dreams.

Della Tolliver  is an example of someone who clearly benefited from the presence of Sydney in her life, though Della would never have believed it at the outset.  When we first meet Della, she's a very unhappy woman.  I didn't like her very much at that point, but she improves her life over the course of the narrative with Sydney's help.

Just as in real life, there is no permanent victory against the forces of "urban re-development" in The Talking Drum.  Let us hope that there will always be those like Lisa Braxton who will lift up the voices of the marginalized communities that could be impacted before it's too late.

                                   Lisa Braxton

 

Lisa Braxton Bio 

Lisa Braxton is an Emmy-nominated former television journalist, an essayist, short story writer, and novelist. She is a fellow of the Kimbilio Fiction Writers Program and was a finalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. She is the former president of the Boston Chapter of the Women’s National Book Association. Her stories and essays have been published in anthologies, magazines, and literary journals including Vermont Literary Review, Black Lives Have Always Mattered, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Northwestern University Magazine and The Book of Hope. She received Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest magazine’s 84th and 86th annual writing contests in the inspirational essay category and was a finalist for the “Still I Rise” grant for Black Women Writers. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in mass media from Hampton University, her Master of Science degree in journalism from Northwestern University, and her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Southern New Hampshire University. She lives in the Boston, Massachusetts area. 

Talking Drum Buy Links

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Six and a Half Deadly Sins by Colin Cotterill

Six and a Half Deadly Sins is the most recent book in a mystery series that takes place in Laos in the 1970's.  If historical fiction is defined as fiction taking place at least fifty years ago, then this series doesn't meet that criterion.  The central character, Dr. Siri Paboun, is one of the more memorable mystery protagonists.  I've loved him ever since he debuted in The Coroner's Lunch which is still my favorite book in the series.   At the beginning of the series he was drafted to become the coroner of Laos.  There was no one else who was qualified.  At this point, he's retired from the position.  Yet Dr. Siri continues to involve himself in murder cases along with his remarkable wife, Madame Daeng.

                                                     

The title of this book is a pun.   In Lao a traditional handwoven skirt is known as a pha sin.  Dr. Siri received a sin with a grisly surprise sewn into it.  This sent him, his friend Civilai and  Madame Daeng to the North of Laos where the sin had been made to investigate further.  He traveled from place to place being given sins with more clues.   Clues to what?  The case is very slow to develop.  We don't learn exactly what Siri is investigating until close to the end of the novel.  A group of very courageous woman weavers had no other way of exposing a killer who terrified everyone in the region.

Unfortunately, the slowness of plot development is a serious problem.   Most of this book had little going for it beyond witty dialogue.  Southeast Asia was in tremendous upheaval during the course of this novel, and we are told about these events.  Yet very little actually happens in the narrative until we finally find out what's really going on in Northern Laos.  Once the plot gets going there is a great deal of suspense and some clever twists, but it's all backloaded toward the end of the book.

 By the way, don't cross Madame Daeng.   She's quite an action figure for an old lady.  There's lots of life in the old girl yet.

So I liked the book by the time I finished it, but 75% of this book had far too leisurely a pace.