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In Search of the Crystal Stair

by Rahimah Rahim

93 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0119; ISBN 1-55369-306-X; US$14.00, C$16.75, EUR11.50, £8.50

The uplifting story of one woman's life-time search for fulfilment, and the surprising turn her life takes on the road to The Crystal Stair. The book gives a "behind the veil" at a black American girl who takes an unknown path in her search for answers, and it follows her through adulthood. It is about difficult choices one makes in life, rebuilding after tragedy strikes and never giving up hopes of finding the object of your dreams.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpt      catalogue info

About the Book The story is about the life of a woman who after hearing a very moving and inspirational poem by an influential black poet of the Harlem Renissance era, begins her search in life, trying to climb the crystal stair. The story winds through the years and lives of the main character, Maxine, her mother Rose, and Maxines's siblings. The story tells of difficult choices that the characters made in life, different lifestyles, tragedies and triumphs, and it spans four decades of life for the black Bostonian family. This saga is a Yes I Can book. The beginning of the story takes place in the 1950's in Boston's black working class districts, and continues to the present time, 2000. Maxine has serious choices that she has to make in her life, and the choices she makes are not always predictable. Growing up in a working class, dysfunctional family, with a strong mother whom she loves and respects, a shadowy father, who moves in and out of her life, and her many siblings, all who have stories to tell of their own, makes for interesting reading. The opening scene begins with Maxine leading her family to safety from a horrific house fire in which everything material was lost. The family has to move until their house is rebuilt. Maxine lives through the violent break up of her mother and stepfather, makes some serious changes in her own life, thereby alienating her from her friends, but opening up the door to a new way of life. Little did Maxine know, but some of her life begins to mirror her mother's in many ways. Throughout the many ups and downs in her life as she searches for the meaning of the crystal stair, readers will laugh, cry and finally feel the joys that Maxine discovers. This book gives a behind the veil peek at a black American girl who takes an unknown path in her search for answers, and it follows her through adulthood. In Search of the Crystal Stair is about difficult choices one makes in life, rebuilding after tragedy strikes, and never giving up hopes of finding the object of your dreams. The story is short, a novella, but it is packed full of heart and soul. Many readers will identify with it whether they are young or old. It crosses racial and ethnic barriers in its push to encourage others to dream, and work to accomplish their dreams despite difficulties.

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About the Author Rahimah was born in Brooklyn, New York, the second oldest of 8 children. Her family moved to Boston's Roxbury district when she was an infant and she grew up there. She attended the Boston Public schools, graduating from the Jeremiah E. Burke High School for Girls in 1964. During her school years in Boston, Rahimah had many teachers who influenced her positively and the three she feels influenced her the most were, The late Mrs. Craigwell, Mr. David Owens, and Mr. John Joyce. They all happened to be African Americans and she remembers them as "being caring, and hard task masters. They encouraged me to excel, and made me believe that I could succeed if I worked hard." Rahimah is married and is the mother of five children, two girls and three boys. She has degrees in Nursing and in Elementary Education. She has lived abroad in the Middle East as an English teacher, and as a nurse. She now resides in Massachusetts where she works full time as a nurse, and writes in her spare time. In Search of The Crystal Stair is her first novel.

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Sample Excerpt

Chapter One The Fire

"Fire! Fire!" yelled Maxine as she pushed, pulled and tugged her younger sisters and brothers out of the burning house. Smoke poured beneath the doorway. She opened the door and peered down the back staircase. It was blocked by the thick black smoke. Her 12 year old mind racing, she herded the four younger children towards the front door.

They lived on the third floor of a 3 family wooden frame house. The house was the tallest house on the street, standing like a sentinel looking out over the other small houses on either side of it. It had three apartments, each apartment contained 6 rooms and a bathroom.

Topping the house was a large, slanted attic. The crown of the house, where the children played almost every day. The attic was as large as the apartments beneath it with high rafters and dusty small windows on the front overlooking Mayberry Street. Maxine and her sisters had found several dusty, old trunks up in the attic. The old trunks were filled with pictures of white ladies in buggies, wearing long wide dresses and button up shoes, parasols dingy and faded ,and long hoop skirts with stiff scratchy slips beneath them. Just yesterday, they found new treasures in the trunks. Maxine had found some old blue papers with white handwritten words and drawings. She held them up for her sister to see.

"Look at this," she said with excitement in her voice. On this paper it says that this house #29 once had lands going all the way back to Savin Street. Look, the houses next door weren't even built yet. This house is over 100 years old."

"Let me see that, "said Teri looking over Maxine's shoulder. "The people who lived in this house must have been very rich." She stood up holding one of the long, yellowed dresses that she had found in the other trunk. "This dress must have been white at one time. Do I look pretty?" She twirled around in circles, finally falling down in an exhausted heap of laughter.Her eyes sparkled, her lips curled up in a playful smile, and her braids stuck straight up in the air like they always did. She looked like a brown Pippie Longstockings.

Maxine giggled "Teri you look funny in that dress . It was made for people in the olden days." Maxine picked up the faded white parasol, its lace still clinging to the edges, opened it saying, "Do you think they carried these in the rain?" Then dreamily "I wished I lived back then it must have been fun.".

"Maxine Alford, you better close that parasol, Grannie says not to open umbrellas in the house, it's bad luck." Teri said as she looked accusingly at her younger sister. "Besides, black people were slaves back them, remember?" Their little sister Connie butted in, "Ma's home, she wants you to help with dinner."

"Okay, we're coming" said Teri , carefully putting their treasures back into the trunks. "Come on Maxine, we'll come back to play tomorrow, we'll find lots more things." She closed the trunks and locked them, carefully placing the key in her skirt pocket. They marched down the narrow stairs of the attic.

That was just yesterday. Now ,coughing and choking, eyes burning , Maxine ushered the younger children down the long flight of stairs leading to the front of the house. "Hurry, run outside, quickly," she gasped. In terror, she remembered the second floor tenants and, her grandmother, who lived on the first floor. They had to be alerted to the danger also.

Now flames and smoke billowed down from the attic in the back stairwell. Would she have time to warn them as she fled ? Her eyes burned and her throat and lungs felt on fire, she choked and coughed. Fire engines screamed and clanged in the background. Frantically she banged the doors with her fists as she descended the staircase.

"Fire, fire, get out!" The second floor tenants rushed out, Miss Miller, with her hair in large , pink rollers, her teeth left back in the bathroom somewhere; her nephew , equally as scared and surprised , rushed out with just his boxer shorts and socks on, carrying his small snarling dog Sergeant in his arms, grabbing at his coat as he fled. Maxine pushed on to the first floor. "Grandma, come on , fire, Auntie, fire."

Safe outside at last, the family clung together on the sidewalk in a huddled knot. Maxine watched, tears streaming down her face, as their house burned. It was a crisp autumn day in 1959, in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Maxine shuddered as she saw the flames leaping into the air, sputtering and licking out their long yellow, red tendrils , reaching towards the tall elm trees surrounding the house.

Rose, Maxine's mother, was just a few blocks away heading home from a long day at the sneaker factory. She leaned back in the taxi, closing her tired eyes, and rubbing her worn, sore fingers which had bandaids on several fingers. She was always getting her fingers nicked in the darn eyelet machine. It was a daily thing for her. She sighed, smiling to herself as she thought about the special treats she had bought the kids from the supermarket. The only time she allowed herself the luxury of a taxi was when she went grocery shopping.

She shifted the bags beside her on the seat as she planned her dinner menu in her mind. "I'll make mashed potatoes and green peas, baby beef liver with onions and gravy .." her thoughts were jarred by the taxi driver as he swore under his breath. "Miss, did you say number twenty nine?"

"Yes I did" answered Rose, opening her eyes with a jolt.

"Well , Miss, "continued the taxi driver, "I can't get any closer. Seems to be some problem up further." Rose sat up straight, looking around at the jam of cars in front of the taxi. Fear jolted her heart, hands shaking she paid the metered fare of $1.50 and grabbed her bags quickly to get out .

There Rose stood alighting from a taxi several doors down from her house, arms filled with groceries, eyes filled with horror and fear, as she watched her house burn. She didn't know if her family was safe or not. Rose's mind raced with fear. Where were the children? Tears welled up in her large brown eyes. Her heart pounded so hard she could feel its rhythm in her very fingertips. Clutching the heavy paper bags close to her bosom, as though they were her children, she pushed onward, gasping at the acrid smoke filling the air.

"Let me through ,"she cried. She pushed frantically through the crowd that swelled around her house. "My children, my children, are they all right? Please, someone tell me," she pleaded as she clawed her way to the front.

She had been on her way home from work and had stopped off at the store to pick up a few things for dinner. Her eyes quickly scanned the crowd and spotted the children huddled together on the sidelines. A soft , high pitched shriek escaped her lips as she rushed towards them, dropping everything as she gathered them all in her arms. Kissing , hugging and crying they comforted one another. Rose's strong, copper colored arms held them all.

As Rose looked tearfully at the house, many thoughts crowded into her mind. All the years of hard work and sacrifices to make a home for her children were going up in smoke. Gratefully, she clutched the children close, she still had them. They were her most precious possessions.

She wiped a shaking hand across her eyes quickly so that no one could see the tears falling. Rose believed, erroneously, that only weak women cried in public.. She was a strong woman, and like her mother before her, and her mother's mother before that, she was willing to take what life meted out to her without crying, without tears. Public tears were for the weak. All of her tears and suffering would be done privately, alone.

Rose looked over the crowd of firemen , newspaper reporters, and bystanders. Her eyes met the eyes of her mother. Her mother looked small and fragile, her shoulders slightly stooped, but her hazel eyes were filled with determination and those hazel eyes seemed to signal to Rose , "don't you cry now, hang in there." That look gave Rose the strength to hold on.

Never mind that she had married at the age of 16 against the wishes of her mother, and lived to regret the hard life that followed. Rose said to no one in particular "I just wanted something better out of life than what my mother had." She clutched her children close, rocking them back and forth, stroking their hair. She too had to climb the crystal stairs of life, occasionally looking back to see where she had been .

Rose's mother, Deeyah, was the granddaughter of a slave, and grew up in the deep south. She had birthed 9 children, and spent her days washing and ironing white people's clothes and tending white people's children, barely having energy or time for her own . Deeyah, a strong black woman, did the best that she could to raise Rose and her sisters and brother , without tears, without losing a step in her pace.

Like all strong black women from time immemorial, Rose's mother didn't cry or complain publicly, but kept working. Doing the best that she could.

"My mother had her own aspirations to become a doctor, never mind the fact that she only could go to the sixth grade in her town because there were no schools for black children beyond elementary." Rose continued to whisper her thoughts outloud, to no one in particular.

"Mama married a poor man, my daddy, who worked hard on the railroad. He traveled a lot, and was only home long enough to drop another baby on Mama or to hit her when he was frustrated about something. I know about men and their frustrations." Another silent tear slid down her cheek and she continued to watch the fire as it began sputtering and dying out, the house now a blackened shell of a thing.

Rose wanted a better life than that. She married young, and had a lot of children, but she pushed her children to excel . She worked hard to raise them to get a good foundation, and she and her second husband worked hard to save money to buy this home. This home was a symbol of what hard work and determination had helped them achieve. Now, it was burnt beyond recognition. All the things she had worked for were annihilated. No, Rose wouldn't cry publicly. She would be brave and stoic. She watched her dreams and hopes go up in flames. A silent tear rolled down her cheek.

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Catalogue Information

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