This Side of Eternity

Rosalyn McMillan

A real feeling of 'What else can go wrong' permeates this family's struggle for survival. The Civil Rights movement didn't impact on the story as much as I had expected and I found the style rather pedestrian. Not a book to read if you need cheering up, although it is, ultimately, quite uplifting.

Extract

Anne didn't care. She loves her nieces and nephew from years before, when she first volunteered to baby-sit for them. Anne wasn't sure how her sister felt about them, although, when the first Social Security check came in, Vanilla Mae quit school and fired the fifty-year-old baby-sitter, who couldn't seem to deal with Nikkie's special situation. On weekdays, a special-education bus would pick Nikkie up in front of the house, but because of her having so many seizures, she missed a lot of school.

Parallels