Borders Book Club with Lalita Tademy, Author of Red River

Read our interview, then watch our Borders Book Club episode with Lalita Tademy at www.BordersMedia.com/tademy

 Afterward, tell us what you think about the interview and the program.

The Persistence of Family: An Interview with Lalita Tademy ---

Lalita Tademy's story is a fascinating one: She left her executive position at Sun Microsystems to dive into her family history. What resulted was Cane River, a story about four generations of irrepressible women. The book touched many readers, including Oprah Winfrey, who chose it as a selection for her book club. Now with Red River, Tademy continues to explore her family history, delving this time into her paternal ancestors' stories. The novel centers around the events of one brutal post-Civil War Easter Sunday when white supremacists marched into Colfax, Louisiana, and killed more than 100 black men in a fight over voting rights.

Borders: You went from a life as a corporate executive to trying your hand at writing. Lo and behold, Oprah loved your book! How has life changed for you as a result?

Lalita Tademy: The magic touch of Oprah really is impactful. Because of her, so many more people read the dramatic stories of my maternal ancestors in Cane River than I dared hope. I credit the actual research and writing of my first book with allowing for a personal transformation as well; opening myself up in many ways, of letting go of or expanding some of my rigid views of right and wrong, priorities, family, integrity, the importance of identity, resourcefulness, determination. In order to create and document these stories, I had to anchor myself in my imagination, and at the same time try to reconcile the details and requirements of living in a different time and place, whether on a Southern plantation in the 1800s or in 1930s Louisiana. The odd result of re-creating this world is that I became less of a control freak and more able to compromise in the real world. I can't say for sure, but I believe this process prepared me to get married a couple of years ago for the first time, after a lifetime of singlehood.

Borders: In Red River, Sam Tademy's father explains that the roots of their family began in the Nile River delta and that their family left Egypt freely in search of better opportunities. How much do you know about how your family came to this country?

LT: The sequence about Sam's father telling him about his ancestry comes from a brief snippet of a family story, including the astounding fact that we didn't come to America as slaves, but from the Nile Delta. My great uncle, then 93 and living in the backwoods in Louisiana, drew a map for me in the late 1900s of the shape of the Nile and the Nile Delta. He said Sam's son Jackson first drew it for him when he was a boy. All branches of the Tademys descended from Sam Tademy repeat this story: that we came from the Nile Delta. I recently went to Egypt (after writing the novel), from Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea down the Nile from Cairo to Aswan and Nubia. Because of limited time, I could only make casual inquiries there, but could not corroborate or find similar stories. Nonetheless, I am a great believer in the idea that family stories that persist almost always have a basis in truth.

Borders: What first sparked your interest in the genealogy of your family?

LT: I researched what ultimately became Cane River and Red River at the same time, in an attempt to find as many of my ancestors as I could. For years I dabbled in genealogy for a few hours or days or a week, and then would go back to my "real" life. Not only the verbal stories intrigued me, about murders and suicides and close escapes, but several specific finds nagged at me and held me in their grasp as well. One was an old family Bible that my Aunt Ellen kept, with births and deaths faithfully recorded. Another was a state historical marker at the Colfax, Louisiana, courthouse, memorializing a "riot" and proclaiming the end of the carpetbag era:

On this site occurred the Colfax Riot in which three white men and 150 Negroes were slain. This event on April 13, 1873, marked the end of the carpetbag misrule in the South.

Borders: Where do you even begin to look for documents and other records of your family's history?

LT:  I did the bulk of my research before the predominance of the Internet, which makes today's searches so much easier. My starting point, other than family stories, was U.S. census records, a great snapshot of every 10-year period. Knowing the geographical region of ancestors is key, and then following records as far back in time as they will take you. Unfortunately, in researching African American roots, the census for us only begins in 1870, the first year we were considered citizens to be included in official records. Courthouse records can be revealing, including the buying and selling of land, court disputes, or other brushes with the law. Immigration records can lead to an open door. Talk to relatives, the oldest first, and don't put it off. They won't always be around to help you, and it is a pity when those memories are lost. Follow all leads. Be persistent.

Borders: Because both sides of the Easter Sunday riot of 1873 had passionate participants, was it difficult to find reliable information about what happened that day?

LT: The incident in 1873 is mostly reported as the Colfax Riot, although there are a few studies, written much later, that call it the Colfax Massacre. The written accounts of the time were highly politicized, one way or the other, depending on whether being reported by The Democrat or The New York Times. Each had a very particular point of view and used the tragedy in Colfax to state their case. One of my most unbiased resources came from raw data. In the late 1880s, the Congress heard testimony regarding violence in the Red River region, which included not only Colfax, but the broader Southern region. Both blacks and whites testified, and the transcripts included personal eyewitness accounts of what unfolded on that Easter Sunday of 1873. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of written and official documentation was from a white segregationist point of view.

Borders: After learning so much about your past, what aspects of yourself have you discovered have been passed on to you from previous generations?

LT: I'd have to say stubbornness and determination. These traits abound on both sides of my family tree, and for better or worse, have come to me.

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Now that you've read the interview, watch our Borders Book Club episode with Lalita Tademy at www.BordersMedia.com. 

Afterward, tell us what you think about the interview and the program.

Copyright © 2006 Borders, Inc. Author photo copyright © by Jim Dennis. All rights reserved