Lemon Swamp and Other Places: A Carolina Memoir

by Mamie Garvin Fields and Karen E. Fields

Book Overview

Mamie Garvin Fields was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1888. Though black, her family was gifted and she grew up not among house servants or sharecroppers but among artisans and professionals.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029105501
• Release Date: March 1985
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.7" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Slim, but deep

I helped teach history classes that used this book and I have to admit: it wasn't universally popular among undergrads. But you'll find that you can return to Lemon Swamp time after time and still find it as rich as ever - it's almost impossible to exhaust the insights Fields presents, simply by letting a woman tell her stories. You'll learn more every time you open the book.

Enjoyable,entertaining and historical...

The Lemon Swamp made me recollect warm thoughts of my own grandparents,esp.my Grandmother. Some of Mamie G. Fields's remembrances are very enjoyable to read and often have cultural or a historical significance. Her comparisons of Boston and Charleston during the 1976 Bicentennial were quite interesting. Despite I am not a black woman I could identify with her in terms of the older generation of my family. I've now lived in Charleston area for approx. 15 years and I feel more at home here than I did growing up in New England.A MUST READ BOOK!

Not enough stars for rating

There are not enough stars on this site to rate this book. I read it continuously until I was done and then wanted more. Although it is easy reading and gentle on the spirit, this book is an anthology of events important to the history of African Americans and Black home life of a more genteel time. I wish it was required reading for everyone. It certainly would do much to clarify the problems African Americans have had in this society. It is also very humorous and not all facts and dates. Actually, the author, who appears to be a warm and nurturing person, supplies dates and figures so subtly that they do not interfere with the reading. I am buying another copy as a gift. If I were still teaching, I would certainly have this book on my reading list and every student would have to read it until they got it...

Dignified, amusing memory of a southern black childhood.

Ms. Fields has a wonderful story-telling ability, that brings you into her world so that you too, can look out at her world. You don't have to be a woman, young or black to be on her side, and see the pride and dignity with which she and her "people" thrived in that stifling time and place.