October Suite

by Maxine Clair

"The air cools to crisp, carries sound farther. Last pears ripen and fall, ferment on the ground; the aroma of their wine mixes with the pungency of leaf smoke from nowhere and everywhere. At nightfall, the wing-song shrill of crickets announces that this season has a natural pathos to it, the brief and flaming brilliance of everything at the climax of life moving toward death.
“October Brown had named herself for all of that."

So begins this beautifully written coming-of-age story about a young woman who struggles to overcome her family’s frightening legacy and keep her own child from similar emotional harm.

It is 1950 and October Brown is a twenty-three-year-old first-year teacher thanking her lucky stars that she found a room in the best boardinghouse for Negro women teachers in Wyandotte County, Kansas. October falls in love with an unhappily married handyman, James Wilson, but when she becomes pregnant, James deserts her. Stunned, and believing that James will eventually come back to her, October decides to have the baby. But he doesn’t come back. As her reputation suffers, and with her job in jeopardy, she spends her days in self-deception and denial. Her best friend, Cora, contacts October’s her older sister, Vergie, and her aunts Frances and Maude, who raised the sisters after their mother was killed by their father.

October goes back to her family in Ohio and gives birth to her son. Numb, she gives the child–David–to Vergie and her husband to raise as their own, then returns to Kansas City to rebuild her life. But something is missing–and, apparently too late, October realizes what she has done.

What follows is the heartrending account of October’s efforts to reclaim her dignity, her profession, and her son, efforts that lead her into a bitter struggle with her sister and a confrontation with her parents’ violent past. The Midwest, the flourishing of modern jazz, and the culture of segregation form a compelling historical backdrop for this timeless and universal tale of one person’s battle to understand and master her own desires, and to embrace the responsibilities and promise of mature adulthood. October Suite plays a beautiful, haunting melody, turning everyday life into exceptional art.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, African American, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Book Club, Female Authors

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Maxine Clair was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas, in the 1950s. She is a poet, short story writer, and novelist. She attentded the University of Kansas in Lawrence where she studied science. Clair went on to a career in medical technology as chief technologist at a children's hospital in Washington, D.C. It was while workingthere that Clair became interested in writing. She pursued and achieved her M.F.A. at George Washington University where she is currently an associate professor of English.

Her first book, a collection of poetry, Coping With Gravity, was published in 1988. In 1992 she published a fiction chapbook entitled October Brown, which earned her an Artscape Prize for Maryland Writers. Her next book, Rattlebone, was published in 1994 and is perhaps her most well-known work. Rattlebone is a collection of interrelated stories revolving around the life of a young African-American girl coming of age in a small African-American neighborhood called Rattlebone, in Kansas City, Kansas. Clair got the name of her book from Rattlebone Hollow, a North Kansas City, Kansas, neighborhood.

Her most recent work is October Suite, published in 2001. This novel takes a character from her chapbook October Brown and her novel Rattlebone and explores her life and experiences as an unwed teacher and African-American mother in the 1950s. The novel is a journey of self discovery for its lead character, October Brown, and was well received by critics.

Reviews

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had such high hopes for this novel, since Elizabeth Strout, who is one of my favorite authors, wrote sterling praise for the book jacket. Quite simply, it's a mediocre book with a flat storyline that drags out a predictable tale way too long.

Written by Maxine Clair, this is the story of October Brown, a young, unmarried Black woman who finds herself pregnant. The book begins in 1950 and includes plenty of flashbacks to October's troubled childhood when her father murdered her mother in the bedroom of their Cleveland, Ohio home while their daughters washed the dinner dishes in the kitchen downstairs. October, who was 5 then, and her sister, Vergie, 9, move to Chillicothe to live with their mother's two maiden sisters, Aunt Frances and Aunt Maude. October bears plenty of wounds from that horrific day. She grows up to go to a teacher's college and gets a job teaching third grade in Wyandotte County, Kansas where she lives in a respectable boarding house with her friend, Cora, but when October falls in love with a married man, she loses all sense of her highly-prized respectability. And then she is pregnant. Feeling vulnerable and lost after the baby's birth, she gives him to Vergie and her husband, Gene, who are unable to have children of their own. The rest of the book deals with how October and Vergie handle this potentially explosive situation and the lifelong repercussions they both endure.

Unfortunately, far too much of the text deals with the emotions and psychological consequences of October's poor life decisions, which instead of being smartly introspective and thoughtful, comes off as whining, handwringing prose. Over and over and over. Add to that a superficial, out-of-left-field, soap-opera ending, and I closed the book rolling my eyes.

[Alicia (PrettyBrownEyeReader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the author’s book, Rattlebone, which was a collection of interwoven short stories. One of the characters in that collection is October Brown. She is the main character of this novel. She is a Negro school teacher in 1950’s Kansas. Because of the Jim Crow policies of that time, Negro teachers were not allowed to get married. This creates a backdrop for messiness in the novel since any socializing school teachers did was mostly in secret.

I listened to this audiobook that was read by one of the greatest narrators, Robin Miles. I hope more people will read her work.

[A B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book for the most part, but didn't find it to be particularly noteworthy or a must-read of any sort. It took a few chapters for me to become interested and I nearly put it down. The central character is October Brown, a schoolteacher fresh out of college who has a sad and complicated past. She makes the mistake of thinking that an unplanned pregnancy will make the man she loves stay, and instead winds up with a child she feels nothing for. Her choice affects her career, friendships, and most of all, her relationship with her sister.

October's an interesting heroine. I liked that she struggled with her choices and accepted responsibility for them, unlike the archtype "strong" woman so overdone in literature who would have simply stormed in and done as she pleased, regardless of who she hurt. October's strength is showcased in the passive submission she makes. There's too much deus ex machina towards the end and I lost interest in the last 1/4 of the book, and felt the ending was too abrupt.

What I did find very interesting was the ridiculous work regulations for black and African-American female schoolteachers. I remember my grandmother telling me that women were usually required to quit teaching when they became pregnant, but black women were forced to quit from the moment they got married. The creative lengths these women went to to hide their marriages was heartbreaking.

[Phyllis | Mocha Drop · Rating 4 out of 5]

October Suite is a coming-of-age story about a young woman who struggles to deal with her family and relationship issues. Lillian "October" Brown and her sister, Vergie, are sheltered orphans raised by their two aunts because their father murdered their mother in their presence. The novel begins when October leaves home in 1950 for the first time to begin her life as an educator. Her naivety gets her into "trouble" and she returns home to give birth to her son by a married man. She allows her married, childless sister, Vergie, and her husband to adopt the child and tries to resume her life. Along the way, she deals with her curiosity and details surrounding her mother's death, the loss of her Aunts, the upbringing of her son, her career, her relationship with men and her sister.

The novel starts slowly but we see October as she matures, grows, and develops into a caring and smarter woman. The novel wraps up a little too quickly in my opinion with the door open for a sequel.

[Nancy Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had never heard of October Suite, but Tayari Jones recommended it to me at a Tin House workshop. The storyline has some similar threads to what I'm writing. This is a beautiful novel that absorbed and entranced me from the first page to the last.

It's the story of two sisters in the 1950s who must reckon with motherhood, heartbreak, and a violent past that haunts them. October and Vergie will stay with me for a long time.

[Titilayo · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book. weak beginning that leads you down a well crafted path that brings these characters and their choices into the 4th dimension! the last paragraph sums it all up.

"the wept for the wonder of endings. though they could never shape happy endings, they could go toward them, and marvel at how the pieces come together and fall apart to make new beginnings."

[Tina Landow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. Maxine Clair is a really good writer. The books describes black peoples hurdles of the sixties and the main characters complicated life.

[Shirleynature · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyrically written and visually descriptive, I feel connected with the characters.

[Carrolet · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️This was my second time reading this one. The first was in 2001 and I only remembered that I loved the title and the cover. Two sisters, orphaned and raised by their maternal aunts after losing their mother to domestic violence, grow apart and struggle to reunite. I sided with October, the sister strong enough to change her name and take some risks. Not an easy thing to do in 1950. The ending was a little disappointing.

[Jedah Mayberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admire any writer's ability to conjure lifelike beings in their fiction. I read Rattlebone some years back. I came away with a lifelike impression of October Brown–proud, a bit self-absorbed in her view of the world. Cognizant that some of the choices she had made would ultimately be deemed callous, hard-hearted whether or not that had been her intention. October Suite steps in and tells the rest of the tale, explains what happened to October's heart, the ways she had adopted as a means to protect herself, to wall herself away from the disappointments that plagued her.

Maxine Clair possesses keenly honed insights into the human condition, explores the heights of ambition through to the depths of the lowliest despair to reveal how a person got here, how she came to be the person she is today. Clair gives the same attention to detail when describing a shoe shine, the improvised runs in a jazz riff, how to sew a hem as she does to the care needed to mend a broken relationship between sisters, how at last to face the many buried truths keeping the two of them apart, how to move forward living in full light of the truth. You come away wanting for her characters the same way you imagine they might want for themselves.

[Cinda Brea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just completed Maxine Clair’s novel October Suite and actually feel as if I have left someone near and dear to me behind. I listened to the novel through my local library and then purchased the hardback copy to read. I found October Brown and her family and friends completely captivating. I knew these people deep down in my core. Ms. Clair’s descriptions of her characters were not laid out in long paragraphs with great detail but rather sprinkled throughout the novel. Each character changed and grew. I am a professed escapism reader. I forever tell myself that I prefer light reading: romance and mystery thrillers so I thought this book might be a bit heavy for me. It was heavy, deliciously heavy and deep, and so very realistic. October Suite is a story about the tragedy and love of family by both bloodline and choice. It’s a story of grace and fate. It’s a story about no one being right or wrong but people living the best way they know. Rich in descriptions of mid 20th century American culture, the novel transported me to a time I know so well although I am not familiar with the physical locations in which the story was set. I am so happy that I moved this novel up on my reading list.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

October Suite is a beautifully written novel about a young woman who finds love, looses it, gives a part of that love away and struggles to get it back. Maxine Clair tells a story that will inspire readers to appreciate all the challenges life throws at you and learn to live with what you've got while fighting for what you believe is right. October Suite made me laugh, cry, and angry at the ways people of color were treated in the 1950s and the fight against discrimination that still remains today. I would recommend this book to all mothers and mothers-to-be or anyone looking for a non-traditional love story.

Favorite Quote: “…grace just is. Nobody can explain it, and it’s not something you can deserve. Whether you recognize it or not, whether you feel grateful for it or not, it just is. Guilty or innocent, condemned or redeemed, when you think that you can’t go on, and when you think that you’ve already gone on, grace is wider and deeper than you think, and it can change far more than you ever imagined.

There is no place where anything begins or ends, but by grace, everything comes in its time.” (Chapter 27)

[Martha Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

We read this for our book club. I enjoyed the setting, the terms for African American teachers in those days, some of the jazz context (although it is hard to get excited about reading about music instead of listening to it.) The story was a little to neat the way it circled around. It was also a little hard to understand her love affair. However, there is no question that there is pain in the plot line about whether to raise or give up a child. I think the character development was tricky because there is so much pathos in giving up a child that we are wrung out by that but the real story line is about sisters and their relationship. The love affair got diluted as a result and the competing emotions were not well explicated. I found everything went bland, instead, because the intensity couldn't be sustained. An admirable work and Clair picked quite a challenge.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! it is all about family relationships told through the experiences of two black sisters who are orphaned when their father murders their mother and is sent to prison. There is a lot of flashbacks, but it is well done and easy to follow--at least after I realized that sometimes you are listening to Carrie, their mother and sometime to the Aunts who raised them. I listened , which I felt added a lot because of the dialects being so well performed. Perhaps in print, there are indication when other voices are heard. The story is told mostly about October, the younger sister. It is beautifully written, I fell that i would recognize October if I met her on the street ( and she would be wearing something red, that she designed and sewed herself!

[Margarita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful and heartbreaking story of family loyalty and hardship. It was emotional without being sappy. It was one of those "quiet" books that will stay with you for a long time. I highly recommend, and since I agree with the reviewers who said it started out slowly - stick with it... it's well worth it.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This mid-century, mid-western saga was quite a good read. October Brown was a young woman faced with a life altering decision. It was clear that she was not yet ready to take on the responsibility of a child. Giving up that child was the best decision for the time period. The story kept me interested til the very end.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

1940's Ohio, a black woman named October gives birth to a son. Because the father is married to another woman, October gives the baby to her sister... and then regrets it. This is a story of family, love, regrets, and learning to live the choices you make. Set in the time of jazz and segregation.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story about the hardships of an African-American teacher in the '50s. The main character has several ups and downs that take her through a life journey and lead her to a happy place. Great read.

[Z. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written.

The relationship that developed with ... the name slips me. The brother of Cora's husband -- was an obvious ending which that irritated me a bit. I kept wondering when it was about to happen.

[Lacey Lowder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was interesting. I identified with October and the way she made rash decisions and then realized her mistakes. She seemed childish throughout most of the book but finally grew up toward the end. Overall, I enjoyed it

[Diane Sugars · Rating 4 out of 5]

October Suite is a deep story with complex characters and intertwined storylines. The author breathes life into the characters and they seem to lift up off the page. October is a strong character and the story of her life is remarkable.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely novel. I have no idea where or why I picked this up but it was very well written, gripping, and different read.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

good story, but poorly edited.

[Valerie]

It started out with the feel of a romance novel. It got a lot better.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very sad and heartwrenching novel.

[Mary Hood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another historical fiction piece, this time about African American teachers in to 50s. Great story!

[Vivian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was well written. It was very interesting the way the author wove all of the different stories into life of October. Loved the blues theme that was such a big part of this book.

[Kathleen Basi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing and a beautiful, heart-rending story.

[Rainbowgardener · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully, poetically written novel set in the African-American community in the 1950's. Complex three dimensional characters struggle in their lives and relationships, work through traumas, learn empathy and forgiveness, and love in lots of varieties: mother-child, sisterhood, mature romance.

Lots of descriptions of the Midwest in Jim Crow times. The added pressures on African American women, like teachers not being allowed to be married or even in relationships. This would have been true also for white women in the 1800's, but by the 1950's would not have been. Lots about the added worries of trying to keep their children safe. If they happened to venture into a whites-only space, they would be at risk.

For me it started slow and then ended a little fast, with a whole bunch of happy endings.

[Claudia Majetich · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like some parts of this book, but not others. The bulk of the book was wonderful: very descriptive and emotionally resonant with the life of the main character, October.

I found the beginning had a dry writing style which made the characters hard to relate to. It felt like the author was reciting a series of facts that would get the plot started, which is especially problematic since this part of the book is about October getting involved with what seems to be her first real relationship. I almost stopped reading the book.

But as I read on, I was glad that I hadn't. October and her sister became more vividly described characters, and more interesting individuals.

But...the end fell down. A bit too obvious and easy and happy-happy.