Sudan

This is the third Ninie Hammon book I have read. The author has become one of my favorite writers ever since I encountered her books on Twitter over a year ago.  I sent the author a Tweet after I read Sudan and learned that the book was inspired by the true story of a Dinka tribal who walked 500 miles north to find a daughter who had been carried off by slave traders.

Ninie Hammon told a story of the devastation experienced by individuals, families and whole communities when violence strikes and rips apart the fabric of their life together. Ninie Hammon has such tremendous skills as a writer that she made the characters come alive. I think Sudan is an important book to read because it helps move us away from statistics to thinking about the real people that are impacted by injustice. The people in this book captured my heart and will live there.  This is an excellent story and I highly recommend it. 

When Butterflies Cry by Ninie Hammon

When Butterflies Cry is the second book I have read by Ninie Hammon and it will not be the last. Ninie Hammon has an incredible gift with language. For example, a line from the second page says, “But the smile that started on Andy’s face melted like wax beneath a candle flame.”  Can’t you just see that smile disappear?

The book When Butterflies Cry is based in Wales, Vietnam and West Virginia. An event in time pulls them all together.  An unknown girl shows up at the door. She has been badly beaten by someone but no one reports her missing. A few days later a shell-shocked soldier comes home from the war in Vietnam to find his brother making moves on his wife. Meanwhile, above their home the dam built to hold back toxic waste from coal mining is about to let go.

In Ninie’s book she talks about the United States Bureau of Mines, the agency that is supposed to exercise regulatory control over the mining industry. She says that in practice, the USBM was more of an extension of the industry than a watchdog. I found this particularly interesting because in the Canadian province I live in we have recently had a dam give way that contained toxic sludge from the Mount Polley mine.  One of the reasons why this happened was poor government oversight.  The buzz-word here is self-regulating, The Mount Polley mine spill was  an example of where that policy leads. There were no towns beneath the massive spill that happened in BC, but there was a pristine wilderness which up until now has boasted the largest run of sockeye salmon.

I would highly recommend Ninie’s book.  It is not so much a social commentary as a wonderful story of love and loss and what it means to be family. There is enough drama in this book to keep a reader missing sleep to keep on turning pages until they have finished a remarkable book.