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A Novel
by Maxine Clair'October Brown is a heroine who will break and mend your heart. Maxine Clair has written a beautifully imagined novel that pulses with all the colors and sounds of the lives we live.'
"The air cools to crisp, carries sound farther. Last pears ripen and fall, ferment on the ground; the aroma of their wine mixes with the pungency of leaf smoke from nowhere and everywhere. At nightfall, the wing-song shrill of crickets announces that this season has a natural pathos to it, the brief and flaming brilliance of everything at the climax of life moving toward death.
"October Brown had named herself for all of that."
So begins this beautifully written coming-of-age story about a young woman who struggles to overcome her family's frightening legacy and keep her own child from similar emotional harm.
It is 1950 and October Brown is a twenty-three-year-old first-year teacher thanking her lucky stars that she found a room in the best boardinghouse for Negro women teachers in Wyandotte County, Kansas. October falls in love with an unhappily married handyman, James Wilson, but when she becomes pregnant, James deserts her. Stunned, and believing that James will eventually come back to her, October decides to have the baby. But he doesn't come back. As her reputation suffers, and with her job in jeopardy, she spends her days in self-deception and denial. Her best friend, Cora, contacts October's family: her older sister, Vergie, and her aunts Frances and Maude, who raised the sisters after their mother was killed by their father.
October goes back to her family in Ohio and gives birth to her son. Numb, she gives the child--David--to Vergie and her husband to raise as their own, then returns to Kansas City to rebuild her life. But something is missing--and, apparently too late, October realizes what she has done.
What follows is the heartrending account of October's efforts to reclaim her dignity, her profession, and her son, efforts that lead her into a bitter struggle with her sister and a confrontation with her parents' violent past. The Midwest, the flourishing of modern jazz, and the culture of segregation form a compelling historical backdrop for this timeless and universal tale of one person's battle to understand and master her own desires, and to embrace the responsibilities and promise of mature adulthood. October Suite plays a beautiful, haunting melody, turning everyday life into exceptional art.
Elizabeth Strout
Told in a melody all its own, this story touches many lovely and unexpected notes. October Brown chooses to reinvent herself, only to inadvertently discover herself, and the final chord of accepting herself (and others) reverberates poignantly. Marita Golden
October Brown is a heroine who will break and mend your heart. Maxine Clair has written a beautifully imagined novel that pulses with all the colors and sounds of the lives we live. Terry McMillan
Strong, melodic, and honest..[Clair's] characters are lush and real.. We need stories like these to replenish us.
If you liked October Suite, try these:
by Brit Bennett
Published 2022
From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.
by Toni Morrison
Published 2007
The story of a black girl in America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others. First published 1970; won the 1993 Nobel Prize. Republished 2000.
All the Men I've Loved Again by Christine Pride
Christine Pride's solo debut explores a woman's love triangle in her 20s that unexpectedly resurfaces in her 40s.
