Book Groups Read My Jim

I have had the pleasure now of facilitating two book group discussions of this year’s featured work for Seattle Reads, My Jim by Nancy Rawles.

What I have seen (and heard from others) about the reactions of readers to Rawles’ book is that it makes a powerful impression.  My Jim also gives readers plenty to talk ab0ut.

Yes, for some readers the dialect in which it is told can be difficult to grapple with; in some cases, it took reading it more than once to become accustomed to the cadences and rhythm of the language. But more readers that not commented on how the language and the oral tradition that it embodies drew them in and made Sadie’s story more real.

If you haven’t read it yet, My Jim is the story of Sadie Watson as told to her free-born granddaughter Marianne, in which she recounts her experience as a slave in the American South.

Chapter after chapter, through the handful of possessions she has carried with her over the years (eg: knife, button, tooth), Sadie tells her story of the brutality and loss that she suffered during slavery. But Sadie’s story is also about love. Sadie’s love for her husband Jim, and the bond that they share despite separation, provided much needed balm in her life. It is because of her love of Jim that Sadie can look back on a life marked by rape, violence and the corrosive experience of being treated as less than human and still encourage her granddaughter to not be afraid to love.

Sadie and Marianne make a quilt together. They sew family stories into every stitch, every swatch of fabric. Sadie wants to send Marianne out into the world with some knowledge of who and where she came from.

When I met with a group to discuss this book again recently, I could not help but read aloud some of the last lines:

“You take that quilt wherever you go. When you old and wore you think on me and all the others love you. You close your eyes and feel our love coming up behind you. Thats all you got in this world.”

I am hoping that Sadie’s closing words to Marianne persuade you or your book group to read Nancy Rawles’ powerful, moving novel. You can stop by your local library to pick up a copy. This is a Seattle Reads you are not likely to forget.

And don’t miss your chance to hear Nancy Rawles speak  this week. The main event is Friday night, May 22,  at the Central Library, 7 p.m., and there are also several other opportunities at branches and community venues  (May 20 at Northgate Community Center and Columbia Branch; May 21 at Seattle Central Community College and Seattle University; May 23 at the University Branch and Douglass-Truth Branch).