Dorothy West's novel : The Wedding (book review)
The Wedding
In her first novel in forty-seven years, Dorothy West, the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, offers an intimate glimpse into African American middle class. Set on bucolic Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, The Wedding tells the story of life in the Oval, a proud, insular community made up of the best and brightest of the East Coast's black bourgeoisie.
This two-part TV miniseries, adapted from Dorothy West's novel The Wedding, takes a look at mid-century issues of race and class in well-to-do black society. On Martha's Vineyard in 1953, debutante Shelby Coles (Halle Berry) stirs discord in her social-climbing family when she chooses to marry impoverished white musician Meade Howell (Eric Thal). At the Shelby family estate, weeks prior to the wedding, Meade informs her parents, Corinne and Clark Coles (Lynn Whitfield, Michael Warren), that his family won't be attending the wedding, and the irony of upper-crust blacks being rejected by poor whites hangs heavy. In a later plot twist, the single black father (Carl Lumbly) of three mixed-race daughters takes a very strong interest in Shelby that quickly turns into an overly persistent pursuit.