Country Way East, Okemos MI, Wednesday, March 16, 2011
I believe that novels have the mystical ability to enter our lives at a moment in which we find ourselves standing at the crossroads in-search of something that change our hearts and minds in effort to teach us a deeper meaning of life and love and purpose. Perhaps this is the point for me of Cheri Paris Edwards latest novel: The Other Sister.
My love life stinks. For the millionth time, I’d reached the conclusion that my girlfriend and I had no future, besides the meaningless banality of frivolous momentary interludes of sex, drama, and random cafe-affairs of aimless chit-chat…
….I finished my review of The Other Sister while sitting in the back-booth of a quiet, rural suburban breakfast retreat over near Wake Forest University by historic village of Bethabara Park. I finished my orange juice, left a small tip, grabbed my NetBook, got in my car and dipped towards the University Avenue, headed up to High Point to visit an old friend. I pushed in Damian Marley’s Road to Zion and thought about Edwards’ overall message, an essential lesson on hope, love, community, sacrifice – all the things the African American are in desperate need of. Sanita’s (Jazz) double-life antics catch up with her, sending her back home to face her dubious reality. Carla leads a respectable life of promise and prosperity, committed to excellence, having played by the rules, working hard to achieved and triumph. This is the complex dice both play out in this Christian amalgam of faith, love, and hard-lessons learned. Demonstrably, Edwards is from the old-school and….(cont)
