We Are Bridges, Cassandra Lane
We Are Bridges, Cassandra Lane
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We Are Bridges
A Memoir

Author: Cassandra Lane

Narrator: Cassandra Lane

Unabridged: 8 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/20/2021


Synopsis

When Cassandra Lane finds herself pregnant at thirty-five, the knowledge sends her on a poignant exploration of memory to prepare for her entry into motherhood. She moves between the twentieth-century rural South and present-day Los Angeles, reimagining the intimate life of her great-grandparents Mary Magdelene Magee and Burt Bridges, and Burt’s lynching at the hands of vengeful white men in his southern town.We Are Bridges turns to creative nonfiction to reclaim a family history from violent erasure so that a mother can gift her child with an ancestral blueprint for their future. Haunting and poetic, this debut traces the strange fruit borne from the roots of personal loss in one Black family—and considers how to take back one’s American story.

About Cassandra Lane

Cassandra Lane is the winner of the 2020 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, and managing editor of LA Parent magazine. She previously worked as a newspaper reporter, high school teacher, community relations manager for the Dodgers, and senior communications writer. She received an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. A Louisiana native, she has lived in Los Angeles since 2001.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Parker on August 10, 2023

"In the absence of images, we are inclined to remember inaccurately or fabricate entirely." Cassandra Lane's memoir is an absorbing, evocative story. She crafts a dual narrative, reflecting on her life experiences in tandem with reimagining the history of her ancestors. As the title suggests, she bui......more

Goodreads review by Grace on May 21, 2021

3.5 - I felt honored to receive the author's life story. It's a difficult thing to reckon with a complicated past filled with trauma, violence, and erasure while also meditating on motherhood. I am not critiquing the story itself, but the shifting timelines and writing style didn't completely resona......more

Goodreads review by goldenbookhunter on April 21, 2021

Whether it’s because of lack of information/incomplete documentation of their lives, or family members refusal to talk about their painful pasts, most of us are left wondering about the lives of our ancestors Cassandra’s thirst for information about her ancestors leads her on a quest to uncover her......more

Goodreads review by Debra on May 18, 2021

The author, while pregnant, is haunted by the thought of her great-grandmother who was a young mother when her husband (the author's great-grandfather) was lynched. The lynching is whispered about in the family, but facts are scant. The author sets out to research this family history to make peace w......more

Goodreads review by Virginia on May 06, 2021

I definitely recommend this book for its narrative beauty, but readers should understand discussions of racial injustice are graphic and upsetting. Lane’s exploration of her past is one which should interest readers, as she focuses on the unimaginable racial injustice of her ancestors and considers......more


Quotes

“A multiangled exploration of family trauma and the forging of an identity.” Kirkus Reviews

“In this evocative memoir, Cassandra Lane deftly uses the act of imagination to reclaim her ancestors’ story as a backdrop for telling her own. The tradition of Black women’s storytelling leaps forward within these pages—into fresh, daring, and excitingly new territory.” Bridgett M. Davis, author of The World According to Fannie Davis

“Cassandra Lane writes with the urgency driven to the page by the necessities of that first great art: motherhood. We Are Bridges is a book of history, and as such, it uncovers and recovers the truths no classroom teacher will ever reveal to the children who need to know them most…A love story, a book of how—in spite of every obstacle—black people still make themselves vulnerable enough to take the leap and fall in (and survive!) love.” Jericho Brown, author of The Tradition

“Cassandra Lane stretches the boundaries of traditional memoir. This is an important, beautiful work.” Lolis Eric Elie, former columnist for the Times-Picayune


Awards

  • Louise Meriwether First Book Prize