If the Creek Don’t Rise
by Rita Williams
Published by Harcourt Trade Publishers
Click on book
cover to order
at Amazon.com
Reviewed by Lauretta Ali
Rita Williams’ memories of growing up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado are riveting. She takes her readers through a journey that is as joyous as it is sorrowful. A gifted writer, she weaves a web of intrigue as she reveals what is was like to grow up a little black girl in love with the West and anything cowboy!
Losing her mother at 4 years old, she goes to live with her Aunt Daisy, a woman who never needed to raise anyone. The book opens with Rita, or Reeta as Daisy calls her, traveling back to her hometown after a 20-year absence. She is notified that Daisy is “fixin’ to die’ and requesting her presence.
During the flight, the author ponders about seeing the woman who dominated her early life with an iron hand. Her aunt Daisy knew little about taking care of a child. Upon the death of her sister, Daisy opened her home to Rita. Yet, she alternated between bitterness, jealousy and an unspoken love for her niece. Domineering and headstrong, she doesn’t know how to welcome Rita home in any sort of healthy manner. These two women have an uneasy, embattled relationship; preventing any type of normal display of affection.
The author introduces her family and how they migrated to the West. Daisy married a black landowner in Nebraska and assisted in aiding her family’s move from the south. The author introduces us to her grandparents, Gama and Gampa, her mother Mae Ella and a host of uncles. It was an exciting experience, learning from the author what it was like to grow up with these adults and as a little black girl in Colorado. She details her life as if someone who is sewing a quilt, a swatch at a time, revealing a stunning and remarkable finished product.
If the Creek Don’t Rise is a captivating novel. Not only does the creek rise but so does the author, overcoming unbelievable odds. Rita Williams proves that we are all the sum total of our past and the endless possibilities of our futures.
Armchair Interviews says: A wonderful story all will learn from.
Author’s Web site: http://www.RitaWilliams.com