Sohrab teaches Darius what friendship is really about: loyalty, honesty, and someone who has your back in a football (soccer) match. But all that changes when Darius meets Sohrab, a Bahá’í boy, in Yazd. When he arrives in Iran, learning to play the Persian card game Rook, socializing, and celebrating Nowruz with a family he had never properly met before is all overwhelming and leaves Darius wondering if he’ll ever truly belong anywhere. He’s mocked for his name and nerdy interests at Chapel Hill High School in Portland, Oregon, and doesn’t speak enough Farsi to communicate with his Iranian relatives either. Iranian on his mother’s side and white American on his father’s side, Darius never quite fits in. When Darius’ grandfather becomes terminally ill, Darius, along with his parents and younger sister, travels to Iran for the first time in his life. Surely the crown jewel of the Logan family saga.ĭarius Kellner suffers from depression, bullying by high school jocks, and a father who seems to always be disappointed in him. In this Logan swan song, Taylor is at her best. Taylor ( The Land, 2001, etc.) refers frequently to episodes from her other novels, but this story also gives readers an up-close and personal view of key events of the civil rights movement. This novel places the Logans’ struggles amid historical events: Opening in 1944, it includes the integration of Ole Miss, the murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers, and the impacts of Martin Luther King Jr. Not surprisingly, Mama, Papa, Big Ma, and Uncle Hammer figure prominently in this novel, and when Cassie falls for a White colleague, several family members blatantly object to the relationship. Later, as a successful lawyer and the only Negro in a Boston firm, she remains dedicated to her family and their values, using her legal skills to advance civil rights, initially reluctantly but then willingly when injustice visits a close friend.

In California, after Cassie miscarries, then gains and loses the love of her life, grief becomes her constant companion.

Readers who have followed Cassie Logan since Song of the Trees (1975) will feel the paradigm shift as she moves first to Ohio and then California and Colorado, where she still suffers racism, although different from that in Mississippi. A heart-stopping plot about a character whose life has always been defined by her family and their land.

Mildred taylor books