Rush Home Road

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

This long, densely detailed novel is the story of Adelaide Shadd, a
black woman born in Southwestern Ontario in the early 20th century in an
all-black township settled by fugitive slaves. After being raped at 15,
Adelaide flees to Detroit. Later she finds love and a home in Chatham,
Ontario. Her life is filled with pain and difficulties, but Adelaide is
a courageous survivor. As the story opens, this generous woman accepts
and takes in a five-year-old girl who has been abandoned near
Adelaide’s trailer. Sharla’s background has been as harsh as
Adelaide’s, but the child is bright and curious.

Sharla stirs Adelaide’s memories of working in the strawberry fields
as a young teen, of being raped, of bootleggers in Detroit, and of
further traumas. Through the child, Adelaide relives her past and finds
forgiveness and peace.

Rush Home Road is an epic novel of great length and impressive scope:
not a work for the impatient, but one that repays time and reflection.
The editor calls it “heartbreaking and wise, brilliantly
captivating.” Editors tend to exaggerate at times, but this reviewer
agrees with the verdict.