Crimson Footprints by Shewanda Pugh - Book Review

You have the ultimate heartbreak of a forbidden love between star-crossed lovers.

You even have the teenage daughter coming to grips with the fact that she is the precious fruit of this passionate-but-doomed love (no spoiler here - this is obvious by the third page). And all of it is very well executed.

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The balancing act of life... Deena Hammond is a 24 year old architect living and working in her home town of Miami, Florida. In some ways Deena is very successful, but she comes from a poor background, and in many ways she is still inextricably tied up with those origins. Her grandmother, Emma Hammond, who brought Deena up, is constantly demanding and never satisfied. Should she even be talking to the son of the owner of the business she works for? What is more Deena's family very much expects her to date a black man. Can these two people overcome the odds and form a friendship, or even the romance they both desire?

Shewanda Pugh's Crimson Footprints (Atlanta, Georgia: Delphine Publications, 2012) can certainly be classified as a romance; however, it is much more than that. It is a story of class consciousness and racial division. It is about the struggle to find the right equilibrium between work and family, and it is a story about trying to 'do the right thing'. Most of all, this novel is about balance in all things. We are all different, but we must overcome our resistances and come to the centre ground if we are truly going to be a success in life.

Pugh has managed to successfully weld sweet romance with biting 'slice of life'. Romance, especially the first phase, usually seems enjoyable, even with its ups and downs and Pugh captures the pleasant nature of first love well. Mixed in with these chapters, though, are insights into the often seedy, cruel world of the lower class. This juxtaposition works very well, jarring us, and reminding us that while life can seem pleasurable, there is always harshness, perhaps not too distant from us. There is considerable irony in the contrasts between Deena's romance, and her striving for career success, and Lizzie's pure-flesh 'sexploits' and base efforts to get ahead (for example the Ch. 7 / Ch. 8 contrast). Pugh's phrasing, particularly at peak moments, is often excellent, lifting her prose from the mundane. In Chapter 1, for example, which describes the run down suburb of Liberty City, we read of "Torn fences that imprison rather than embellished" the houses which Deena passes. This care with words, and occasionally poetic turn of phrase, helps to mark out the book as more than the average read. There are moments of pure humour, particularly the events surrounding Takumi's cousin Mike and his fumbling attempts to capture Deena's attention (Pugh, Ch. 47 & following). There are also moments of true shock and also scenes of high drama that take us far from the average world of romance. Pugh has included occasional swearing, and sex is very openly discussed and depicted. This may offend conservative readers, but is certainly justified by the themes, characters and story line.

The book has a more unusual plot structure. Part One (Pugh, Ch. 1 - 7) serves as a general introduction to the Hammond and Tanaka families, and to Deena's work. Soy Candle