

We Are Bridges
A Memoir
Author: Cassandra Lane
Narrator: Cassandra Lane
Unabridged: 8 hr 5 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 04/20/2021
Author: Cassandra Lane
Narrator: Cassandra Lane
Unabridged: 8 hr 5 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 04/20/2021
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.
"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
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
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
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
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
“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