Third Life Of Grange Copeland (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
A Startlingly Poignant Look...Alice Walker's The Third Life of Grange Copeland, was a startlingly poignant read. Once done reading I was brought to tears and rendered speechless. I was overwhelmed with thoughts, and revelations past and present. I hadn't previously put everything I had experienced personally (as a African-American woman), with all that I read in the history books, researched, and newly acquired information, as well the stories and memories from family together. Everything seemed to click and make sense. Alice Walker helped me to see what my people have always been trying to say, but religion, generational gaps had gotten on the way.Grange Copeland was in every sense of the word a monster when he is introduced by Brownfield (his son). Mean, abusive, neglectful, and full of hate. The latter being directed at self and the only people who probably cared for him. This would be where his son would learn to hate himself and the things he was supposed to care about. After Grange leaves home in search of what would make him whole again. Brownfield is left at home to clear up the mess his father has left including a dead mother and half brother, and a legacy of debt incurred through share cropping. To avoid the life he knew he headed north; just to be held up by good loving, and eventually falling in love. Love led him to step in his father's shoes. History would repeat it's self through Brownfield and the abusive cycle continued and with greater intensity. Even after Grange returns a seemingly changed man, he still leaves his son feeling rejected, inferior, and unloved. Grange tries his best but the world and life had taken it's still and irreversible damage was done. Killing the mother of his children Brown is taken to prison and he progresses deeper into denial and hate. Grange tries to do right by his son's youngest child. Trying to show her and prepare her for the life ahead. He does a good job, but counted out his vengeful son. The ending bloody, devastating, and unmercifully real; but hope and love prevail.This book takes us through post civil war Georgia and through the Civil Rights movement. The things I saw in this book and prevalent and still relevant; when looking at the African-American experience and life in the USA. This book is beautifully written and not for those unwilling to think on a deeper level of consciousness. The book is truly worth the read. This book can help you put things into perspective (not just on a racial level, a human one) if taken in properly.
An enlightening book about violence within the black community in the deep south mainly by men against their own families. The men are so angry at their unfair position in society that they take it out on their wives and children and then in turn blame it on their treatment at the hands of white people. At the beginning of the book Grange is married with a young son, Brownfield. The family lead a miserable, poor existence with Grange barely acknowledging his son and frittering away what little money they have on booze, gambling and women. He heads North looking for something better and returns years later to find that his son is basically leading the exact same life he did only Brownfield is even more embittered, vicious and nasty. When Brownfield kills his wife, Grange finds he has another chance at family life by taking over the care of Brownfield's daughter Ruth.There are some really shocking moments in this book and some horrible violence but in places it's humourous and heart-warming. The language is harsh but the book is so beautifully written with such strong characters that you get carried along by the story without feeling that she's trying to shock. This is the first book I've read by Alice Walker, think I'll have to get a copy of The Color Purple!
What do You think about Third Life Of Grange Copeland (2004)?
I picked this up at the library because I've never read anything by Alice Walker but I of course have heard of her. At first I wasn't sure I would finish it- it was so much like The Color Purple (in the sense that it was all about cruelty to women and children. I never read it, but saw the movie). But it was a good book. And it meant more to me after I read the Afterword by the author. I like knowing the context in which a book was written- and it interested me that this book was written in the 60s. Right in the midst of the Civil Rights movement by a woman very much involved in the fight. That context translating into this story is amazing. It would have been so much easier for her to write about the oppression itself. Instead she wrote about the effect of that oppression on this poor black family living in the South. You want them to rise above it, break the cycle, all that. But they don't. And the book makes you understand why.
—Vicky
I must admit that I did not quite finish this book. It just became so depressing that I could not read anymore. Instead, I skimmed through the end and found Walker's endnote, which indicated that she anticipated and perhaps aimed for my type of response. Her goal - to show how societal violence manifests in personal violence and how oppression begets oppression - is necessary but because of this very goal, this novel seemed more political than literary and the characters were slightly stereotypical. Given that the cyclical violence in this story wore me down so much, it clearly achieved its goal. That being said, my having nightmares many nights in a row meant that I probably got the point and did not need to read that much more!
—Lisa
This has to be one of the most depressing and sad, yet poetic and beautifully written novels of all time. The afterword from Alice Walker is very poignant and moving shedding light on the personal experiences that lead her to write this moving portrayal of the life of a poor black man (and his family) during the 1930's in America under the sharecropping system which was really just an extension of slavery.This is an absolute must read in my opinion and I'm thoroughly shocked that I never heard of this book until a few months ago - it's shame all attention has been placed on the "The Color Purple" which is a great novel don't get me wrong still one of my favorites but "The Third Life of Grange Copeland" is just as good if not better in providing insight into the plight of the "Colored/Negro" man during this period in America.
—Sherese
