Nancy Henderson-James » Book Reviews

Review and interview with bookpleasures.com

Admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:39:23 +0000

With At Home Abroad: An American Girl in Africa, Nancy Henderson-James has proven herself to be a masterful talent in crafting a captivating memoir infused with a great deal of vivacity, introspection and even some humor and poetry. It is not a memoir to rapidly gulp down, but one to mull over as the author unfolds her childhood through impressionist morsels.

Interview: A Conversation with Nancy Henderson James author of At Home Abroad, An American Girl in Africa
Review: At Home Abroad, An American Girl in Africa

Mary Edwards Wertsch, author of Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress

Admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:31:10 +0000

“Nancy Henderson-James has written a tremendous book. Her writing skillfully weaves the threads of a beautiful exotic setting, the discoveries and tensions of adolescence, the powerful shaping attachment to a very particular place, and the unfillable void of absence. I highly recommend her memoir to anyone exploring the mysterious terrain of childhood, the challenge of straddling vastly different worlds, or the way loss adds depth as well as pain to a thoughtful life.”

Feathered Quill Book Review excerpt by Ellen Feld

Admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:35:45 +0000

“Where this book shines is in the relationships between the American missionaries and the inhabitants of Angola; their differences and similarities. Slowly, as the author grows, she comes to realize the disparity between the two.

Comments such as, “My world was wealthy and protected. And white. But in every interaction between black Angolans and white Portuguese danger skulked,” and “Mulattos the cinnamon ones were called in town, in a sneering tone that made me look at them and wonder what was wrong with being mulatto,” help to open the reader’s eyes to the injustices that abounded all around the missionaries. The disparities between the two communities are fascinating and the true draw of this book.”

Rebecca Reads review excerpt by Kam Aures

Admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:34:30 +0000

“One of the things that stood out the most for me was the fact that “children were given independence very early. It wasn’t unusual for them to leave the family at age six or eight to attend school far from home and to see their parents only a few times during the school year.” (p.123)

I could not ever imagine sending my 4 1/2 year old child away in a year and a half and only be able to see him a few times during the year. While there were some advantages to the missionary life, to have to send my children away would be the deal breaker for me. It seemed that for the children in the story this was one of the most difficult parts for them as well.”

Reader Views review excerpt by Olivera Baumgartner -Jackson

Admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:33:28 +0000

“The author’s love of Africa shines in all the little scenes of everyday life she writes about. She truly brings the land and its people to life, and make one yearn for simpler, if not always gentler times. Without preaching she brings to the surface the harsh realities of a struggling continent, all the big and little inequalities and injustices we like to pretend we know nothing about. And she’s not shy about admitting her own, very personal struggles – not only being transplanted at an age which tends to be difficult for every young person, but also growing up with emotionally quite distant parents, some of whose values she no longer shared as a teenager and a young adult. Seeing America and her American relatives through the eyes of a child who grew up in a very different culture was a great discovery.”

Judy Hogan, Founding Editor of Carolina Wren Press

Admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:31:05 +0000

“At Home Abroad is a stunning autobiography of Nancy Henderson-James’s youth in Africa. Heart wrenching is her uprooting at age 15, from Angola, whose natural world, people, customs, and languages she so loved, when the war for independence began. Nancy bravely and articulately recounts a true saga of personal loss and bereavement, but out of the crucible of conflicts between herself and her parents, the Africa she loved and the America from which she felt estranged, comes crystalline strength, confidence, humor, and self-knowledge. Her journey to wholeness, with its exquisite analysis and detail, enlightens us, so that we, too, see our own lives with new understanding and compassion and recognize better our place in the 21st century as citizens of the world.”

Pat Schneider, author: Writing Alone and With Others, Oxford University Press, 2003

Admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:28:24 +0000

“In this intimate and detailed autobiography, Nancy Henderson-James throws open the door on a room in the history of religion that has been locked and double-bolted: the life of a child of Christian missionaries in the 1950’s in Africa. It is not another story of the children of a crazy preacher or an abusive father. Rather it is a story of the loneliness of a daughter of liberal Protestant missionaries who do (almost) everything right professionally, but are absent in crucial ways to the lives of their children. “

I was dancing between complex alliances of race, nationality, gender and religion

.”

Readers will wince at a wastebasket made from an elephant’s foot, at a child going to a male teacher to tell a secret that belongs to a parent, at images of spacious homes and multiple servants in a village of poor dwellings – “. . . my life in white colonial Angola . . .in the midst of a system fast coming apart.”

But At Home Abroad is also the story of a young woman finding her own way to survival, to freedom, and to her own spiritual path.”