book review: The Fall of Rome by Martha Southgate
The backstory: After so enjoying The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate ( my review ), I wanted to read her earlier novels too. The basics: The Fall of Rome takes place at a private, all boys boarding school in Connecticut. There are three alternating narrators: Jerome Washington, a Negro (his preference) Classics teacher who has been at the school for thirty years; Jana Hansen, a middle-aged divorcee English teacher who is new to the school; and Rashid Bryson, an African-American first-year student with dreadlocks who comes from a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn. My thoughts: In The Fall of Rome , the three main characters were delightfully diverse, yet I found equally myself compelled by all of them. Despite the differences of these three characters, none were a caricature. Jerome, who could be a bit of a curmudgeon after thirty years at one institution, still had balance: "One thing that became clear to me after I had taught at Chelsea for awhile is that fo...
