The Sisterhood of Blackberry Corner: A Novel

Andrea Smith

Jul 2007 · Sold by Dial Press

About this ebook

Filled with compassion, humor, and tenacity in the face of almost insurmountable odds, here is a rich, inspiring tale of friendship and family, sisterhood and mother love . . . and of finding grace where you least expect it. 

Canaan Creek, South Carolina, in the 1950s is a tiny town where the close-knit African-American community is united by long-term friendships and church ties. Bonnie Wilder has lived here, on Blackberry Corner, all her life, and would be content but for her deep desire to have a child. She and her husband Naz cannot conceive, and he refuses to adopt. Even the support of her outrageous best friend Thora—to whom Bonnie tells everything—can’ t help fill the emptiness inside her.

Then Naz finds a blanketed infant on the banks of Canaan Creek, and suddenly Bonnie’s life is transformed. She has found her calling. Together with Thora and the rest of the hilarious, tough, and all-too-human women from her church group, Bonnie creates an underground railroad for unwanted babies. But one of these precious gifts will come back to haunt her: a deception begun in good faith comes full circle, ultimately forcing Bonnie to find the courage to confront a difficult truth at the center of her own life.

Ratings and reviews

Andrea Smith has written a funny, touching story about friends in the fictional Blackberry Corner / Three Sisters towns in low country South Carolina. The two protagonists - Bonnie and Thora - represent two sides of the mid-20th Century African-American female experience. Bonnie the self-sacrificing and too-good-to-be-true woman who wants a baby of her own so badly that when a dead baby is found in the creek near her house, she volunteers to help save babies born to others who are too poor or too young or too uncaring to keep the child (an in the end her love and sacrifice are not enough to overcome the demons that Naz,her bigger-than-life husband who once pitched in the Negro Baseball league,brings demons from his childhood). And Thora, Bonnie's best and oldest friend who brings the sass and is the foil to Bonnie's purity (Thora drinks too much wine, smokes too many cigarettes, cusses, disagrees with the Church women in their community, never wanted children, and has a very happy and long marriage) A good book for Book Clubs as there is much to discuss. However, it starts really slow and you have to be committed to reading it. And the plot is predictable and revealed too early; I found myself just waiting for the final reveal.

A bit slow to begin with, but soon accepted the pace and was pulled in by the true to life characters and let the story unfold. Well worth the patience.

Excellent book. Well developed characters. Unexpected twists and turns. Hard to put down.

About the author

Andrea Smith has received fellowships from the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center and The New York Council on the Arts. She was born and raised in Brooklyn and now lives in Atlanta with her son. She is currently at work on her next novel.