Book Review: The Girl Who Fell From The Sky
by Heidi W. Durrow
Publication Date: Jan 01, 2010
List Price: $14.22
Format: Paperback, 256 pages
Classification: Fiction
ISBN13: 9781851687459
Imprint: One World
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Parent Company: Bertelsmann
Read a Description of The Girl Who Fell From The Sky
Book Reviewed by Thumper
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow is the most remarkable
debut novel that I have read in years! The small novel about a young girl, a
lone survivor of a family tragedy, is stunning. The novel hit me with the
force of a hurricane strength wind knocking the air out my lungs. When I
finished the novel, I just sat; quiet and mesmerized with my mouth wide
open. Durrow, in her first outing, come the closest of reaching the great
mythical plateau – The Great American Novel. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
is an ass wiper!
During her first year in America, in 1982, when she was 11 years old, Rachel
Morse lived through a tragedy that many of us can only conceive of as a
living nightmare. Rachel, her white Danish mother Nella, Brother Robbie and
baby sister Ariel fell from the top of their Chicago apartment building.
Rachel is the only survivor. The authorities, Rachel’s extended family and
friends, do not know if the family jumped or was pushed. When it is safe
enough for her to travel, Rachel is sent to live with her grandmother and
Aunt Loretta, who she has never laid eyes on before. Rachel does not see her
African American father Roger. The novel is Rachel’s and Nella’s story: how
Nella left Roger and brought their children to live in Chicago; Rachel’s
feelings of abandonment and being a stranger in her own family; and Rachel
eventually coming to terms with her inner self and identity. The novel’s
narration duty is shared among three characters: Rachel, Lorrane and Brick.
Lorrane was Nella’s supervisor when she came to Chicago and Brick was a
little black boy who lived in the same apartment building as Rachel and her
family. While Brick and Rachel voices shape Rachel’s story, Lorrane brings
Nella’s story to life with the assistance of Nella’s journal. Through space,
alternating time and settings, the novel is completely realized.
Durrow does a magnificent job in capturing Rachel’s life and bringing it to
the page. Rachel is not only a charming character; she becomes a real young
person. Rachel got my sympathy when she began struggling with her racial
identity. While Rachel is the main character, she also serves another
purpose, as a springboard for Durrow to dive into a discussion on race in
America. Durrow examination of race through Rachel and Nella’s eyes is
poignant and insightful. Durrow was able to give a reality gut check on
being black or biracial in America. I had not been moved, emotionally nor
intellectually, on a perspective about race since Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
Speaking of Morrison, Durrow was able to produce the same power that I have
seen in works of Morrison and Faulkner. Durrow accomplish this feat with her
own unique voice. Where Morrison love to use the complex, convoluted,
thought exhausting sentences to float her stories boat, Durrow goes in the
opposite direction by using short, uncomplicated sentences to construct the
mood and direct the flow of the story. The simple sentences are used with
laser accuracy to paint a complete picture; in the same manner
Georges-Pierre Seurat used spots of color in his paintings. *smiling* You
wasn’t expecting me to drop a name like Seurat on you, were you? *LOL* Up
close, Durrow’s sentences are undemanding, but when the story is look upon
from a distance, it is colorful, sharp and vivid.
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is an unqualified winner. The story evolves
and becomes a living and breathing being, rising and ebbing like waves along
the shore. The novel reads sounds and has the feel of the blues. Durrow was
able to accomplish this feat by using small concise sentences, which may not
look like much when examined on their own, but when thrown together, paints
a vibrant picture alive in color. Durrow emerges as THE new powerful voice
on the literary scene today.