作品情報

大学という閉じた空間で、権力と人種の線が交差する。

黒人教授を中心に、大学という制度の中で生じる摩擦と選択を描く。学問の場の表面の静けさの下にある緊張が、じわりと立ち上がる。

書籍情報

出版社

One World/Ballantine

発売日

2003-04-01

ページ数

304ページ

言語

英語

サイズ

16.18 x 2.79 x 24.26 cm

ISBN-13

9780345442499

ISBN-10

0345442490

価格

11502 JPY

カテゴリ

洋書/Literature & Fiction/Contemporary

Bethesda Barnes has reached a point in life where she at last feels comfortable. She loves her family, despite a stormy relationship with her mother. For romance, there’s Lloyd Bounds, a devoted postal clerk. Although, cards on the table, Beth wouldn’t mind a ring. Ask Beth what part of her life is truly fulfilling and she just might answer “my beautiful career.” After landing a plum teaching position at an Ivy League college, Dr. Barnes focuses her energies on her students, even the obnoxious ones, encouraging them all to “always strive for more.” Though driven and dedicated, Beth is fairly detached from her faculty colleagues, well aware that she is one of the only black faces in a sea of white. Despite the disparity, she loves her job and pursues it with gusto. Until an incident on campus rocks her world—and forces her to confront society’s uglier side. Late one night, four African American sorority sisters are called vile names and assailed with garbage. The students decide to charge the boys with assault and racial insensitivity for violating the university’s harassment code. They ask Beth to be their faculty advisor for the case. When Beth accepts, she walks into a racially charged firestorm of heated protest and dangerous threats. It turns out that one of the boys is a skinhead who seems to have sympathizers in high places. When the case goes national, even the editorial boards of presumably liberal newspapers criticize the victims and their cause. Though some of girls drop out of the case, and her personal life is blindsided by tragedy, Beth perseveres with the cause, believing some things are worth fighting for . . . especially in the name of justice. A powerful novel that boldly takes on large, important themes while telling an intimate story of a courageous woman, Breaking Away is Kristin Lattany’s most persuasive and searing novel to date.

Kristin Lattany is the author of Do Unto Others , Kinfolks , Guests in the Promised Land , which was nominated for a National Book Award, The Landlord , which became a motion picture, and a bestselling young adult novel, The Soul Brothers & Sister Lou . She received the Moonstone Black Writing Celebration Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives in New Jersey.

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