Rating: 
Summary: High School Students, this is a good choice to impress
Review: a teacher or two...A warm book, gentle like steel. Excellent storytelling, enough historical fiction to warrant a multiple-read. A good group discussion book, begs to be talked about late into the night.
Rating: 
Summary: A story for the ages.
Review: China Redd has been waiting all her life. Waiting on the Redds across the road at Roseberry or for a child to be born or a son to come back or, as now, for death, starting each day with the question: "Is this the day, Lord?"In 1861, China Redd's family matriarch, Cally, gives birth to the son of two endangered marriages. In less years than a boyhood can be lived, one son dooms the other all because he took his mother's glowing earrings. One mother's heart is mortally wounded & a deep, abiding separation between master & slaves settles in. 100 years later, China waits for death with her own story to add to the generations buried in the slave graveyard up the hill from Roseberry. Nancy Peacock has brought the kitchen window to life. Has breathed, for a bright moment, Technicolor into sepia-hued photographs. Of men ravaged by slavery & women savaged by loss. Of a son who took a pair of abalone shell earrings & for that another son is sold. One dark night the earrings are stolen, cursed & hidden away. 100 years later, the earrings come back to China as her grand daughter adds her story & Roseberry molders into ruin. This storyteller, with her profound & lilting language, surprisingly spare & intensely evocative, has given us a read that's like the bursting of summer's first raspberry upon your palette. A different kind of morality. Set aside your stuff & come Home Across The Road to step into a whole other world where women wait to see what life brings them. A madness I understand. A rage I have known & a passivity that has my daughter snarling at every word spoken. Fascinating!
Rating: 
Summary: Spellbinding
Review: Generation-spanning tale of the interwoven lives of the two Redd families, the white Redds of the Roseberry plantation in Chatham County, North Carolina, and the black Redds, Roseberry slaves and their descendants who eventually make their home across the road. The story, which is nothing short of the history of slavery in the South, is recounted largely through the recollections of China Redd, an aging black domestic who as the book opens in 1971 is sitting on her front porch waiting to die. The language of the book conveys a sense of rocking, remembering, waiting: it is rhythmic and repetitive and spellbinding. Earthy details bring China's memories vividly to life, and a bone-weariness in her tone makes this account feel utterly real. China is the real thing. China's weariness is not defeat, however. Her memories are punctuated by instances of her family's efforts to claim dignity where they can---from a house slave's theft of a pair of abalone earrings (which become the book's central symbol) to China's own onetime habit of turning on her porchlight and sweeping loudly so as to embarrass Riley Redd, her white boss, out of beating his son: small actions that signify unspeakable bravery. Peacock is a master at ferreting out subtle ways invisible people can make their presence felt. As with her debut novel, Life Without Water, Peacock takes on a subject that is extremely tricky, and gets it right.
Rating:
Summary: Moving-Suspensful Story
Review: HOME ACROSS THE ROAD is a moving-suspensful novel.Last fall while reading the book review section of the Atlanta Constituion newspaper- i found the review. I immediatedly when tothe bookstore to purchase it.Its better than the review.Its such a great story and one thatis different than many that depict this epoch in American history.The author has given the African American Redd family all the dignity they deserve.Its intriguing and I was on the edge waiting to see how this story ended.Was sorry it had to end.I have read the book twice and its one of the few novels that you can read and reread and reread.Was inspired to read the author's earlier book LIFE WITHOUT WATERwhich was also gret but HOME ACROSS THE ROAD IS BY FAR THE BEST.ITS A THUMPS UP WITH AN A! Cant wait to read the next novel by Nancy Peacock.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful account of an aging black woman's concerns.
Review: Home Across the Road is one of the more powerful novels dealing with post-Civil War life for former black slaves to appear in recent times. Roseberry has spent her life on the plantation home of the white Redds: this reflects on that life, relationships between blacks and whites during and after the war, ad one woman's hopes and struggles. A powerful account of an aging black woman's motivations and concerns.
Rating:
Summary: Was not as impressive as her debut novel
Review: HOME ACROSS THE ROAD spans 5 generations of Redd's, one side descended from slaves, while the other side descended from the people that owned them. Together, they live on a plantation called Roseberry. The story is told from the view points of several family members from both sides of the family, in particular China, who in the beginning of the book, we are told, is old and waiting to die. Her granddaughter Abolene is living with her across the road from Roseberry, along with Abolene's young baby daughter Cally. As China tells us her story, the reader slowly learns about the family's early days at Roseberry, and how Jennis Redd, a white man, fathered a child with Cally, a slave owned by Jennis. The child was named Cleavis, and due to a "misunderstanding", Cleavis is sold for stealing a set of abalone pearls that belong to Jennis' wife, and thus Cleavis is taken away forever. In turn, Cally takes revenge on the white Redd's by stealing the pearls, which are then handed down from generation to generation, stories of superstition and luck surrounding the pearls. As the story progresses, we learn of the different generation members that follow, until we end with Abolene's story. At the same time, we follow the history of the white Redd's that ends with Coyle Redd, the son of an abusive father and a mother who China works for. HOME ACROSS THE ROAD by Nancy Peacock is told in the same easy-going simple prose that made her debut novel LIFE WITHOUT WATER so charming. Unfortunately, this same style does not work for her second novel. I found this second novel lacking, and although the book had so much potential, spanning 5 generations from the days of slavery to the early 1970's, it seemed to fizzle out before it ended. The story in itself was fascinating, but unfortunately the telling of the story was not. However, because I so enjoyed her debut novel, this book does not discourage me from reading future books written by Nancy Peacock.
Rating:
Summary: Was not as impressive as her debut novel
Review: HOME ACROSS THE ROAD spans 5 generations of Redd's, one side descended from slaves, while the other side descended from the people that owned them. Together, they live on a plantation called Roseberry. The story is told from the view points of several family members from both sides of the family, in particular China, who in the beginning of the book, we are told, is old and waiting to die. Her granddaughter Abolene is living with her across the road from Roseberry, along with Abolene's young baby daughter Cally. As China tells us her story, the reader slowly learns about the family's early days at Roseberry, and how Jennis Redd, a white man, fathered a child with Cally, a slave owned by Jennis. The child was named Cleavis, and due to a "misunderstanding", Cleavis is sold for stealing a set of abalone pearls that belong to Jennis' wife, and thus Cleavis is taken away forever. In turn, Cally takes revenge on the white Redd's by stealing the pearls, which are then handed down from generation to generation, stories of superstition and luck surrounding the pearls. As the story progresses, we learn of the different generation members that follow, until we end with Abolene's story. At the same time, we follow the history of the white Redd's that ends with Coyle Redd, the son of an abusive father and a mother who China works for. HOME ACROSS THE ROAD by Nancy Peacock is told in the same easy-going simple prose that made her debut novel LIFE WITHOUT WATER so charming. Unfortunately, this same style does not work for her second novel. I found this second novel lacking, and although the book had so much potential, spanning 5 generations from the days of slavery to the early 1970's, it seemed to fizzle out before it ended. The story in itself was fascinating, but unfortunately the telling of the story was not. However, because I so enjoyed her debut novel, this book does not discourage me from reading future books written by Nancy Peacock. --This text refers to the Paperback edition
Rating: 
Summary: Trite
Review: I am two thirds through this book of sterotyped characters and have decided to not continue. It is poorly written. All the white characters are studpid or evil and the black ones loving but unable to live under the oppression of those whites to whome they belong.
It is not realistic or interesting.
Rating:
Summary: A Potential Oprah Selection
Review: I have just spent a wonderful snowy weekend with the Redds of Chatham Co., NC and find it to be a wonderful, though somewhat depressing at times, read. I am sure Oprah will discover it eventually if she hasn't already. If I were the author, I would make sure she got an autographed copy. Also, it should make a good movie with Oprah as China, who worked for the white Redds for 47 years. All the characters were interesting even though you didn't live with the white Redds like you did with the black Redds. Coyle deserved better than he got. Am looking forward to another good one from Nancy Peacock
Rating:
Summary: A Potential Oprah Selection
Review: I have just spent a wonderful snowy weekend with the Redds of Chatham Co., NC and find it to be a wonderful, though somewhat depressing at times, read. I am sure Oprah will discover it eventually if she hasn't already. If I were the author, I would make sure she got an autographed copy. Also, it should make a good movie with Oprah as China, who worked for the white Redds for 47 years. All the characters were interesting even though you didn't live with the white Redds like you did with the black Redds. Coyle deserved better than he got. Am looking forward to another good one from Nancy Peacock
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