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The Wedding
The Wedding
The Wedding
Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

The Wedding

Written by Dorothy West

Narrated by Regina Taylor

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

From Dorothy West, the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, The Wedding is an intimate glimpse into African American middle class. Set on bucolic Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, this is the story of life in the Oval, a proud, insular community made up of the best and brightest of the East Coast's black bourgeoisie. Within this inner circle of "blue-vein society," we witness the prominent Coles family gather for the wedding of the loveliest daughter, Shelby, who could have chosen from "a whole area of eligible men of the right colors and the right professions." Instead, she has fallen in love with and is about to be married to Meade Wyler, a white jazz musician from New York. A shock wave breaks over the Oval as its longtime members grapple with the changing face of its community.
     With elegant, luminous prose, Dorothy West crowns her literary career by illustrating one family's struggle to break the shackles of race and class.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 1, 1998
ISBN9780743547772
The Wedding

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Reviews for The Wedding

Rating: 4.051724137931035 out of 5 stars
4/5

58 ratings10 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Several generations of a family cope with the issues every family copes with and more, in that there are black ancestors and those married in, and many pass for white. So racial issues in a very different way, fascinating and charming, come to light. The modern family in the 1950s lives on Martha's Vineyard in a small, tight community of affluent blacks, though their many shades of color are accepted. It's a good community where all the mother's look after all the children. The two daughters of the present family (1950s) are marriageable age; one marries and the other is about to marry when a persistent bad-boy type tries to dissuade her. The family's stories go back to slave days. The book is beautifully written by an accomplished author. I found some sobering, thought-provoking issues in the book, which may have been one of the points. Unfortunately, only a little has changed since then.

    Will it ever be possible to help people understand they all belong to the same species? Today's news looks pretty dismal in that regard.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    What a fascinating look at the Black professional class and the snobbery of color and class. Which group is less forgiving - the white Southerners longing for their pre-Civil War "home," or the middle/upper-class Blacks looking with disdain at their less-educated brothers. And was Tina's death punishment for Lute's daring to move up in rank? Or for his dalliances with white women? Or for his gross mistreatment of women?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Dorothy West was one the last surviving of members of the Harlem Renaissance during which she published the magazines, Challenge and New Challenge. The Wedding first published in 1995 is a fascinating and beautifully written look at the privileged, but tiny, African-American community on Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s. Shelby Coles, the youngest daughter of Corinne and Clark Coles, a NYC physician, is about to marry Meade Wyler, a white jazz musician. As the wedding nears, the history of the family, descended from slaves and slave-owners, unfolds and a complication arises. Lute McNeil, a furniture craftsman, has rented one of the houses in the Oval neighborhood with his three motherless daughters, and he is determined to marry Shelby himself.It's illuminating how weddings bring out deep-seated cultural values and mores. It makes me want to go back and reread Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding and Carson McCuller's The Member of the Wedding.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It still holds up after all this time. There's still the quiet narrative to question passing and the benefits and downfalls those that are able to pass experience. It holds space for the vulnerability that the Black community feels for and amongst its members.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Engrossing and fascinating multi-generational tale of an African-American family whose current incarnation is well-off and summering on the Vineyard. It's a study of African-American migration and social assimilation as well as a series of moving character studies. I found the ending anti-climactic. Otherwise it's well worth your time as a well-wrought important American novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The color issue seemed to be such a prevalent theme in our history. On my way to the Inkwell for a wedding.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    25 Dec 2009 - gift from fellow LibraryThing Viragoite BelvaA short novel, published in 1995 by an author I associated with an earlier era, this is a fascinating and involving exposition of history, race and class though 19th and 20th century America. Opening in a community of the black bourgeousie in 1950s Martha's Vineyard, we are soon tracing back the lineages of the main family through black and white, lower and upper classes, back to freed slaves and poverty-stricken workers. Women are raised to prize their light colour, then castigated if they choose a black or a white husband. Innocent and beautifully-drawn children suffer the expectations and assumptions of their elders, to often tragic effect.Both meditative and full of action and character, this is an important book that can teach us all something, even if we think we already know about the histories and issues involved.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Well-written novel by African American writer about the African American middle class, mostly set in the insular community they summered in on Martha's Vineyard in the 1950's. Focus on 5 generations of two families and how they were connected through their descendants. Big focus on degree of color of one's blackness, and one's preference for a particular shade of black OR prefer whites to blacks as a partner. Enjoyed the book overall. But as the end zeroed in on Shelby and Lute, the author did not explain enough about Lute and his interaction (and attraction) with Shelby until the last pages. I found the end of the story left me unsatisfied. Feels like an unfinished book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book left me wanting more. I truly enjoyed it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I think it is an important book because it gives insight to Black America's psychological view of itself before the Civil Rights Act. I read the book about 10 years ago and was somewhat disturbed by the way Blacks viewed beauty back when The Wedding was set. I just remember being thankful that my mother was dark and considered beautiful. The fact that I and others found my dark mother so attractive made me totally oblivious to any issues about skin tone when I was growing up. By the time I heard of this type of thinking, it was mercifully too late for me to be scarred.

    2 people found this helpful