So Far Back

If someone were watching you while you read this novel, they'd see your eyes widen with amazement at the mysterious parts, or frown at the injustices suffered by women and blacks in times past. So Far Back is the best novel I've read since Charles Frasier's Cold Mountain. Both are beautifully written and conceptualized, whether or not they have anything to do with regional history. However, Durban's sensual, mystical descriptions absolutely capture the real city of Charleston, ancient and modern. More important, Durban's insights into racial and class dynamics are as valuable as the diaries of Mary Chesnutt and others. If you want to learn about other romantic Southern locales, don't read the excruciating Sullivan's Island or Big Stone Gap. So Far Back is far superior in every way.

Durban's insightful and often haunting descriptions of personnal relationships and struggles to overcome ingrained prejudices elevate this novel to a great read for all ages. Her character development is exquisite, and the subjects of aging and racial relationships are daunting but sensitively portrayed. A definite book club choice for me, this novel gives new meaning to historical fiction.

While some readers may not understand all the nuances of Charleston's society and her traditions, they will nonetheless be captivated by Miss Durban's fluid writing. It is a novel that one could finish in several hours without putting it down.She is one of the finest Southern writers I have experienced in years.

It is very rare to find a work of fiction as rich and emotionally complex as SO FAR BACK. A writer of remarkable insight and compassion, Durban explores the complexities and contradictions of race in a story that expertly weaves present and past, and provides an understanding of humanity that will resonate with readers whether they grew up in the South or not. This is, quite simply, a haunting and beautiful novel.

This hypnotic novel about Charleston past and present is a brilliant exploration of racism - its bitter roots and its modern disfiguring effects. But it's also something else: an act of alchemy in which years of painstaking historical research have been transformed by Durban into what can only be called "living history." She has so completely imagined her fictional universe - its sounds and odors, its self-justifying strategies, its specific cultural dementia, its continuously tragic but nevertheless human failures - that one feels somehow present in the past, but this time blessed with an understanding that is always missing from the actual present. This is really a fine, thoughtful, and ultimately unforgettable book.