Leedom-Ackerman’s (No Marble Angels) first novel contains the raw seeds of a fine work unrealized. A promising themetwo journalists’ personal quests played against the turbulent backdrop of African politicsis diffused by uneven characterizations and conflict development and flat, reportorial prose. Tough-edged yet vulnerable loner Olivia, a black journalist in a slump, and earth mother Jenny, insecure in the face of a second pregnancy, an unfinished book and a chasm in her marriage to a Wall Street banker, share a seminal past journalistic assignment in a politically ravaged African countryan experience that permeates present events, yet from which the reader remains psychologically distanced. Appearances at the U.N. by the Nations’ Liberation Organization and fanatic despot Bulgawi prompt Olivia and Jenny to pursue NLO leaders Jamin and Nyral through a tame vision of New York’s underside to uncover their mysterious financial backers. Haunted by unaired ghosts, Jamin and Olivia’s stilted encounters poorly convey the tensions of their ambiguous relationship. As Olivia is pulled into the NLO plot at its climax, provocative questions of gender and racial identity arise that demand earlier dramatic grounding. Jenny’s domestic conflict is handled with more conviction, though marred by a predictable love triangle. While touching a universal pulse, the conventional details of Jenny’s protected world lack the imaginative spark that would make her seem less self-indulgent. More important, Leedom-Ackerman does not provide the compelling portrait of Africa that the story needs and deserves.

The new American Writers Museum, opening this May in Chicago, celebrates American literature in a lively, interactive space that honors America’s writers past and present.

Joanne Leedom-Ackerman 

educator writer

Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, American Novelist. Recipient Sevellon Brown Memorial award, 1971.

Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. Her works of fiction include The Dark Path to the River and No Marble Angels. She has also published fiction and essays in books and anthologies, including Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement; Remembering Arthur Miller; Electric Grace; Snakes: An Anthology of Serpent Tales; Beyond Literacy; Women For All Seasons; Fiction and Poetry by Texas Women; The Bicentennial Collection of Texas Short Stories; What You Can Do.

Characters in No Marble Angels struggle to close distances between each other, distances of race, sex, age.
“A valuable philosophical or political acquisition as well as a literary one … should be sought out and read.”—Carolyn See, Los Angeles Times
“The stories remind me of both I.B. Singer and Flannery O’Conner—compelling.”—John A. Williams, The Man Who Cried I Am
“Readers casually picking up … No Marble Angels might think they have stumbled into Anne Tyler’s world … gems of clean, direct narrative.”—Baltimore Sun
“With wonderfully wry humor, Leedom-Ackerman depicts the kind of good will that ends up causing trouble for others … a refined sense of craft is evident in all the stories.”—Library Journal

A political thriller about strong-minded women and men, The Dark Path to the River tells a love story that moves between Wall Street and Africa.

Characters in No Marble Angels struggle to close distances between each other, distances of race, sex, age.

Characters in No Marble Angels struggle to close distances between each other, distances of race, sex, age.

A political thriller about strong-minded women and men, The Dark Path to the River tells a love story that moves between Wall Street and Africa.

No Marble Angels (paperback). Characters in No Marble Angels struggle to close distances between each other, distances of race, sex, age.

https://www.bol.com/nl/f/no-marble-angels/30310757/