Black cloud rising A novel

The role of Black soldiers in the Civil War remains underchronicled. Falade's tensely wrought first novel is set during a critical time in 1863, just after the Emancipation Proclamation, when those enslaved by unrepentant secessionists were liberated and fled to join freedmen's colonies or enlist in the Union army. Richard Etheridge, son of plantation owner John Etheridge and an enslaved Black woman, is one such soldier, proud of his sergeant's stripes and his company's mission to free other enslaved people on Roanoke Island. Yet despite the unifying call for abolition, the Union ranks remain mired in racism. Richard remains conflicted about the white half of his family. As he recalls the years of slights and mindless cruelties he endured as both his father's child and property ("Strict obedience . . . was surely the only way that a slave father felt properly honored"), he nonetheless yearns for connection with his self-centred half sister, his cousin Patrick, and, most of all, his father. As he and Patrick continue their lifelong competition for Etheridge's respect from opposite sides of a battle line, Richard eventually realizes just what freedom requires and what it will require giving up. A masterful depiction of the precarious nature of Black life during the war and of slavery's unrelenting assault on human dignity.

The story of the African Brigade, a unit of Black freedmen who fought for the Union during the Civil War, gets its due in this superior adult debut from Faladé (after the YA novel Away Running). The brigade's efforts to hunt down Confederate guerrillas in North Carolina in the fall of 1863 are conveyed by Richard Etheridge, a historical figure who was born into slavery on Roanoke Island and fathered by his master, and whose white half-sister taught him to read and write. That upbringing left him with some ambivalence after he was freed; having enlisted in the Union Army "to help destroy" the Confederacy and its dehumanizing culture, Etheridge still retains some fond memories of the time before his liberation. As the brigade prepares for military action in hostile terrain, Etheridge flashes back to his past and to his time with Fanny Aydlett, the love interest he left behind to join the fight. Those recollections alternate with taut combat sequences as the unit struggles to pacify the area. Etheridge is made a fascinating figure, well suited to serve as the focal point for Faladé's exploration of the complexities of Etheridge and his comrades's rapid shift from powerlessness to armed military duty. Engrossing and complex, this will have readers riveted. (Feb.)

DEBUT In this profoundly reflective novel, Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award winner Faladé (Fire on the Beach) uses real-life Civil War sergeant Richard Etheridge to explore the immediate consequences of emancipation. In autumn 1863, thousands of formerly enslaved men joined the ranks of the Union Army as it capitalized on its Tidewater Virginia foothold by eying eastern North Carolina, where Confederate irregulars still lurked. The African Brigade, formed by outlier abolitionist general Edward Augustus Wild, was tasked with routing out these bushwhackers after others (which is to say, white troops) had failed. The moral center and relentless questioner at the heart of this narrative, Etheridge must face down complex feelings about his past; he's the son of an enslaved woman and the man who enslaved him, and he's actually vested in his Etheridge heritage, even as he struggles with his father's indifference. He must also square off against another senior sergeant who accuses him of hating his own Black skin, confront thoughts of his swaggering white biological cousin Patrick, and help his corporal find missing family, all while worrying about his own ma'am and his beloved Fanny. VERDICT A triumphant examination of U.S. history and race relations at a crucial juncture, as seen through the eyes of the well-wrought, ever-questing Etheridge; highly recommended.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal