A girl aged ten in her parents' house on Jamaica, Resolute experiences calamity when pirates raid. In 1729 the small cane plantation had prospered and attracted picaroons, who sail in at night and raid, bringing off goods and slaves of all colours.
MY NAME IS RESOLUTE involves us from the first, as the young girl warns of the danger of jumping over a candle while wearing skirts; the further evils of smallpox and potential marriage to an older landowner are just a taster of the uncertainty of life at this time. As the pirates attack, the girl and her older sister Patience are hastily dressed in petticoats with jewels sewn into them by their mother. Captured along with some of their family, coloured slaves and Irish slaves, the girls can only weep.
Filth, starvation and degradation mean that this story is not for the tender, but with each change of circumstance we see that all the captives get equal treatment and Resolute barely understands what is happening, unlike Patience. English privateers, a plague ship full of rats and ocean storms pile turmoil on the sisters. Eventually, seeing snow and frost for the first time, Resolute who has always had servants is sold for five pounds, expected to earn her keep. Her journey takes her from one version of captivity to another and yet more, as far north as MontrΓ©al, for all tough, dirty and unpleasant jobs were done by human hands at this time.
Marvelling at young Resolute's survival instinct, her inner strength and sharpness, her misplaced determination to see her mother again, I just had to keep reading. One disaster overtakes the last and the story moves along at a fine pace. Contrasts with fine gowns and patched garb, a lady's life in Boston and an indentured servant's labours, politics and war, make for a rich, informing read. Resolute learns that a woman needs her own way of making a living. By the end of the haunting story we feel we have seen the places, handled the flax stalks and scented the marauding bear.
I am filled with admiration for the research, planning and writing which went into MY NAME IS RESOLUTE. I hope to read more tales by Nancy E. Turner which bring the past lives of people into our homes. This gripping sequence of adventures and survivals would have a worthy place on anyone's bookshelf.
Nancy Turner burst onto the literary scene with her hugely
popular novels These Is My Words, Sarah's Quilt, and
The
Star Garden. Now, Turner has written the novel she was
born
to write, this exciting and heartfelt story of a woman
struggling to find herself during the tumultuous years
preceding the American Revolution.
The year is 1729, and
Resolute Talbot and her siblings are captured by pirates,
taken from their family in Jamaica, and brought to the New
World. Resolute and her sister are sold into slavery in New
England and taught the trade of spinning and weaving. When
Resolute finds herself alone in Lexington, Massachusetts,
she struggles to find her way in a society that is quick to
judge a young woman without a family.
As the seeds of
rebellion against England grow, Resolute is torn between
following the rules and breaking free. Resolute's talent at
the loom places her at the center of an incredible web of
secrecy that helped drive the American Revolution.
Heart-wrenching, brilliantly written, and packed to the brim
with adventure, My Name is Resolute is destined to be
an
instant classic.
No excerpt available.
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